Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


t 


https://archive.org/details/historyofassyriaOOolms 


♦ 


PALACE  CATE  AT  DUR  SIIARRUKIN 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


BY 

A.  T.  OLMSTEAD 


PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY,  CURATOR  OF  THE  ORIENTAL  MUSEUM, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  •  LONDON 
1923 


Copyright,  1923,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER’S  SONS 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Published  November,  1923 


TO 

NATHANIEL  SCHMIDT 
THE  MASTER  WHO  TAUGHT 
NIHIL  JURARE  IN  VERBA  MAGISTRI 


PREFACE 


Assyrians  deserve  to  be  studied  by  and  for  themselves. 
Current  practice  has  bracketed  them  with  the  Babylonians 
and  has  seen  in  their  culture  but  a  pale  reflection  of  Baby¬ 
lonian  civilisation.  As  the  student  of  ancient  history  has 
come  to  realise  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  “classical”  cul¬ 
ture  or  history,  that  the  Romans  were  worlds  distant  from  the 
Greeks,  so  he  must  carefully  differentiate  between  Assyrians 
and  Babylonians  in  his  record. 

And  what  a  story  it  is  that  the  historian  of  Assyria  has  to 
relate !  Only  a  Parkman  could  do  full  justice  to  its  colour  and 
movement.  Primarily  it  is  a  war,  a  war  for  the  civilised  world 
of  its  day,  and  a  war  which  almost  succeeded.  One  need  not 
belong  to  the  much-abused  school  of  fife-and-drum  historians 
to  realise  that  a  narrative  in  which  the  wars  did  not  play  a 
large  part  would  not  be  true  to  the  character  of  the  people 
themselves. 

Yet,  at  the  very  beginning,  a  warning  should  be  uttered. 
The  Assyrian  was  frankly  and  honestly  an  imperialist;  there  n 
was  bloodshed  and  cruelty  in  his  warfare  and  he  did  not  under¬ 
stand  why  he  should  not  relate  what  he  did.  In  this  he  was 
simply  following  current  practice  and  his  example  has  been 
followed  in  turn  to  recent  days.  Historians  of  Assyria  in 
modern  times  have  carefully  tabulated  each  horror  and  have 
given  the  Assyrian  a  reputation  for  frightfulness.  The  pres--! 
ent  writer  believes  the  truth  should  be  told  about  war  and 
none  of  his  evil  doings  has  been  concealed,  save  as  closer  in¬ 
vestigation  has  sometimes  shown  that  the  sin  is  against  the 
truth  and  not  against  the  human  body. 

But  this  practice  of  telling  the  truth  about  the  Assyrians 
has  distorted  the  popular  conception  of  the  Assyrian  char¬ 
acter,  for  other  historians  have  not  told  with  equal  fulness 
the  truth  about  the  peoples  whose  histories  they  have  written. 

A  certain  school  of  historians  before  1914  seems  to  have  de- 

•  • 

Vll 


vm 


PREFACE 


termined  to  legislate  war  out  of  history,  another  found  it  only 
a  convenient  peg  on  which  to  hang  diplomatic  contests,  a  third 
eulogised  the  powder  cart  on  which  history  advanced,  but 
all  were  alike  in  refusing  to  tell  their  readers  about  the  horrors 
of  war  they  read  in  their  sources.  The  historian  of  Assyria 
has  one  Consolation,  the  blood  of  millions  is  not  on  his  skirts. 

The  truth  is  that  the  Assyrians  were  no  worse  than  other 
imperialists.  One  might  gather  from  the  pages  of  many  writers 
that  the  Assyrians  were  the  only  people  who  ever  cut  off  enemy 
i heads  or  used  torture;  the  student  of  history  who  has  gone 
Jbeyond  the  manuals  to  the  sources  can  prove  atrocities  in 
every  period  and  against  every  people  whose  records  have 
been  preserved.  Modern  imperialism  differs  in  one  respect 
fundamentally  from  ancient,  it  is  not  so  honest;  such  an  inno¬ 
cent  term  as  “ punitive  expedition”  may  cover  a  multitude 
of  sins,  from  flat-nosed  bullets  to  men  blown  in  shreds  from 
cannon,  from  the  horrors  of  the  Belgian  rubber  country  to  the 
horrors  inflicted  on  Belgian  peasants.  Imperialism  and  im¬ 
perialists  are  always  terribly  alike. 

With  all  its  grimness,  the  story  of  Assyrian  war  has  a  fas¬ 
cination.  Even  when  dealing  with  frontier  raids  against  petty 
tribes  the  very  specialist  does  not  long  remember,  there  are 
presented  illuminating  instances  of  political  policy,  or  insight 
is  afforded  into  the  lives  of  strange  and  unknown  peoples, 
hidden  away  in  wild  valleys  and  forested  mountains  which  the 
geographical  research  of  our  own  day  has  still  fully  to  explore. 

Day  by  day  our  horizon  widens.  We  behold  Elam  develop 
from  prehistoric  times,  the  Hittite  sphinx  speaks  at  last  and 
in  broken  Indo-European,  we  trace  the  spectacular  rise  of 
Haldia  where  a  generation  ago  thought  only  of  a  savage  Ar¬ 
menia,  we  assist  at  the  very  beginnings  of  the  Median  and 
Persian  invasions  of  the  Fertile  Crescent.  Familiar  faces  are 
there  also,  peoples  and  individuals  known  from  our  Greek 
texts,  and  the  Greeks  themselves  appear  for  a  tantalising  mo¬ 
ment  or  two.  Best  of  all,  we  have  at  last  a  background  for 
the  Chosen  People.  The  Old  Testament  no  longer  stands  by 
itself;  every  page  is  illuminated,  and  the  evolution  of  Israel 


PREFACE 


IX 


is  seen  to  be  but  an  episode  in  the  great  drama  wherein  As¬ 
syria  played  the  chief  part. 

(War  was  not  the  only  interest  of  the  Assyrian^  First  of  all 
imperialists,  he  developed  a  real  empire.  No  longer  was  the 
conqueror  to  rule  a  mass  of  semi-independent  states;  he  organ¬ 
ised  a  provincial  system  which  did  more  than  we  suspect  to 
weld  the  peoples  he  controlled  into  a  unity  with  international 
outlook.  Whether  we  love  or  hate  imperialism,  we  must  recog¬ 
nise  that  the  firm  foundation  of  modern  imperial  organisation 
was  laid  by  the  Assyrians. 

Warrior  first  and  then  administrator,  the  Assyrian  was  not 
without  a  deeper  culture,  and  if  we  have  not  as  yet  credited 
him  with  non-military  activities,  it  is  because  we  have  con¬ 
fined  our  reading  to  his  war  annals.  Now  we  may  visit  his 
ruined  capitals,  stroll  about  his  city  ramparts,  observe  the 
architecture  of  his  palace,  enter  his  once  closely  guarded 
harem.  We  may  read  his  record  on  his  palace  walls,  often  in 
the  ornamental  cuneiform  writing,  but  we  will  learn  more  of 
his  civilisation  if  we  turn  to  the  beautiful  bas-reliefs  which 
likewise  clothe  his  walls.  From  his  sculptures  we  may  learn 
his  method  of  making  war  or  of  fishing,  the  manner  in  which 
a  palace  or  a  bird’s  nest  is  constructed,  the  foods  he  ate,  the 
animals  he  kept  in  his  stables.  We  may  assist  in  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  novelties  in  technology,  such  as  a  new  method  of 
casting  bronze,  or  in  the  discovery  of  a  new  plant,  the  tree 
wool  men  shred  for  garments. 

As  the  empire  enters  the  last  century  before  the  tragic  crash, 
the  interest  grows  in  intensity  and  the  sources  multiply.  Fif¬ 
teen  hundred  business  documents  testify  to  the  economics  of 
the  empire,  and  the  same  number  of  letters  take  us  behind 
the  scenes.  Here  are  the  defeats  so  carefully  glossed  over  by 
the  official  propagandist;  we  may  estimate  exactly  the  extent 
of  the  boasted  victories,  sympathise  with  the  worries  of  a  pro¬ 
vincial  governor  as  he  bears  the  civilised  man’s  burden  among 
the  savage  tribes  or  attempts  to  conciliate  a  cultured  but  de¬ 
generate  people.  We  uncover  the  intrigues  of  the  officials  or 
of  the  harem  women.  Some  speak  of  cutting  timber,  the  trans- 


X 


PREFACE 


port  of  stone,  the  building  of  a  palace,  the  securing  of  horses, 
the  tribute  from  the  provinces;  others  are  from  astronomers 
and  report  eclipses,  fortunate  and  unfortunate  days,  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  the  stars  in  the  heavens.  Many  are  religious,  more 
are  ecclesiastical  in  tone. 

Revealing  as  they  are,  even  the  letters  do  not  give  us  ulti¬ 
mate  truth.  That  we  find  in  all  its  nakedness  in  the  appeals 
to  the  deity  for  knowledge  of  the  future,  or  in  prayers,  where 
the  heart  is  laid  bare  in  agony  before  the  divine  ones  whose 
decisions  for  ill  it  cannot  reconcile  with  its  own  known  right¬ 
eousness.  (There  are  few  periods  of  the  ancient  or  of  the 
earlier  meaiseval  history  which  can  compare  with  this  last 
Assyrian  century  in  fulness  of  source  material  and  in  variety 
of  incident^  Once  we  read  these  letters  and  prayers,  we  can 
no  longer  consider  the  Assyrian  merely  a  brutal  man  of  war;  he, 
stands  forth  in  all  his  humanity  as  a  man  like  unto  ourselves./ 

The  most  subtle  yet  the  most  telling  cultural  evidence  is 
that  which  comes  from  psychological  reaction  to  language. 
A  falsely  modern  appearance  is  often  given  to  the  past  by  the 
use  of  the  pet  phrase  of  the  hour;  this  false  atmosphere  can 
be  avoided  no  better  than  by  the  large  employment  of  the 
actual  words  of  the  Assyrian  writers.  Much  of  the  delicate 
flavour  must  perforce  evaporate  in  the  transfer  from  one  lan¬ 
guage  to  another,  but  enough  remains  to  give  some  faint  sug¬ 
gestion  of  the  mind  behind  the  translation  or  the  paraphrase. 

In  the  same  fashion,  extensive  use  has  been  made  of  the 
Biblical  quotations;  the  English  versions  have  not  been 
avoided  when  they  seemed  to  have  the  right  word,  but  there 
has  been  no  hesitation  in  departing  from  them,  even  to  the 
point  of  paraphrase,  if  it  seemed  necessary  in  the  interest  of 
clearness.  The  translations  rest  on  the  results  of  modern 
scholarship;  in  numerous  cases  where  the  text  is  in  disorder, 
the  right  word  has  been  found  in  the  versions  or  by  necessary 
conjecture.  Later  interpolations,  especially  those  proved  as 
such  by  their  absence  from  the  Greek  translations,  have  been 
left  one  side  without  comment. 

Every  published  source  has  been  read  in  the  original.  The 


PREFACE 


xi 


latest  translations  have  been  in  every  case  compared  and  made 
the  basis  for  that  here  given.  These  translations  are  of  all 
dates,  some  made  a  generation  ago,  while  even  the  compara¬ 
tively  late  ones  need  to  be  brought  up  to  date.  For  the  reigns 
of  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  Sargon,  and  Sennacherib,  the  author 
has  employed  the  draft  translations  he  is  preparing  for  the 
new  series  of  cuneiform  texts  by  American  scholars. 

That  these  renderings  may  be  improved  is  to  be  expected, 
for  so  vast  is  the  literature  and  so  difficult  its  investigation 
that  even  repeated  readings  with  this  purpose  in  view  have 
not  always  normalised  the  text  and  translation.  This  for 
the  expert;  for  the  intelligent,  perhaps  still  somewhat  scep¬ 
tical  reader,  it  may  be  emphatically  stated  that  the  points 
at  issue  are  of  much  the  same  character  as  those  which  still 
agitate  the  students  of  the  classics,  with  this  advantage  to 
the  Assyriologist — that  his  material  is  increasing  so  rapidly 
that  every  day  sees  new  problems  of  translation  solved. 

The  book  is  not  intended  as  a  mere  cento  of  uncorrelated 
translations.  Every  effort  has  been  made  to  apply  modern 
methods  of  historical  criticism.  Source  problems  have  been 
investigated  in  detail  and  the  sources  have  been  asked  the 
standard  questions.  If  often  we  can  only  confess  our  igno¬ 
rance  and  our  hope  for  future  information,  in  others  results 
of  first-class  value  have  been  secured. 

Special  attention  has  been  paid  to  human  geography.  The 
greater  part  of  the  lands  described  has  been  seen  by  the  au¬ 
thor  in  person.  As  Fellow  in  the  School  for  Oriental  Studies 
at  Jerusalem  in  1904-1905  he  traversed  Syria  in  detail  from 
Hamath  to  the  borders  of  Egypt;  as  director  of  the  Cornell 
Expedition  he  visited  in  1907-1908  the  sections  of  Asia  Minor, 
north  Syria,  Mesopotamia,  Assyria,  and  Babylonia  which  are 
of  most  interest  to  the  historian  of  the  Assyrian  Empire. 
Geographical  descriptions  are  in  most  cases  based  on  personal 
observation.  Classes  and  seminars  in  the  later  history  of  these 
regions  and  war  work  dealing  with  the  problems  of  the  present- 
day  Near  East  have  added  background. 

Bibliography  has  been  reduced  to  a  minimum  and  so  have 


XU 


PREFACE 


the  discussions  on  moot  points.  In  a  subject  so  rapidly  chang¬ 
ing,  most  bibliographical  aids  quickly  cease  to  have  value  for 
others  than  the  expert,  and  as  for  questions  in  dispute,  it  has 
been  observed  that  the  vast  majority  are  solved  by  the  discov¬ 
ery  of  new  material  and  not  by  the  genius  of  the  interpreter. 

All  this  bibliographical  material  has  been  listed  and  the 
moot  points  have  been  discussed  in  a  series  of  preliminary 
studies.  The  standard  books  on  the  history  of  Assyria  and  of 
neighbour  countries  are  listed  with  critical  comment  in  the 
chapter  on  the  ancient  Near  East  in  the  Manual  of  Historical 
Literature  about  to  be  published  under  the  auspices  of  the 
American  Historical  Association.  A  full  study  of  the  sources 
and  of  the  problems,  with  a  complete  bibliography  of  Assyrian 
historical  inscriptions,  is  given  in  the  Assyrian  Historiography.1 
The  entire  political  history  of  Babylonia  is  presented  in  a  series 
of  articles  in  the  American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages ,2  and 
the  Chaldsean  Dynasty  will  be  found  in  a  forthcoming  article  in 
the  Annual  of  the  Hebrew  Union  College,  volume  II.  A  similar 
series  for  the  earlier  portion  of  Assyrian  history  may  be  found 
in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society .3  A  detailed 
history  of  the  reign  of  Sargon  may  be  seen  in  the  author’s  doc¬ 
toral  dissertation,4  and  a  briefer  account  of  that  of  Sennacherib 
in  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Historical  Association ,5 
The  Assyrian  data  for  Asia  Minor  are  collected  in  the  Ramsay 
Memorial  volume,6  and  the  complicated  balance  of  power  as 

1  Olmstead,  Assyrian  Historiography,  Univ.  of  Missouri  Studies,  Social  Science 
Ser.,  Ill,  1,  1916. 

2  The  Political  Development  of  Early  Babylonia,  AJSL.,  XXXIII,  283  ff.;  The 
Babylonian  Empire,  ibid.,  XXXV,  65  ff.;  Kashshites,  Assyrians,  and  the  Balance 
of  Power,  ibid.,  XXXVI,  120  ff.;  Babylonia  as  an  Assyrian  Dependency,  ibid., 
XXXVII,  212  ff.;  The  Fall  and  Rise  of  Babylon,  ibid.,  XXXVIII,  73  ff.;  cf.  A 
History  of  Babylon,  Amer.  Jour.  Theology,  XX,  277  ff. 

3  The  Assyrian  Chronicle,  JAOS.,  XXXIV,  344  ff.;  Tiglath  Pileser  I  and  His 
Wars,  ibid.,  XXXVII,  169  ff.;  The  Calculated  Frightfulness  of  Ashur-nasir-apal, 
ibid.,  XXXVIII,  209  ff.;  Shalmaneser  III  and  the  Establishment  of  the  Assyrian 
Power,  ibid.,  XLI,  345  ff.;  cf.  Chaldceans and  Chaldians  in  Armenia,  AJSL.,  XVII, 
250  ff.;  Assyrian  Chronology,  ibid.,  XXXVIII,  225  ff. 

4  Olmstead,  Western  Asia  in  the  Reign  of  Sargon  of  Assyria,  1908. 

5  Western  Asia  in  the  Reign  of  Sennacherib  of  Assyria ,  Proc.  Amer.  Hist.  Assn., 
1909,  91  ff. 

6  Anatolian  Studies  Presented  to  Sir  William  Mitchell  Ramsay,  The  Assyrians 
in  Asia  Minor,  pp.  283  ff. 


PREFACE 


xm 


recovered  from  recent  Hittite,  Egyptian,  and  Assyrian  sources 
in  the  Journal  of  Egyptian  Archaeology  A  The  question  of  orien¬ 
tal  imperialism  is  discussed  in  the  American  Historical  Review,2 
the  Assyrian  government  of  dependencies  in  the  American 
Political  Science  Review A  Fundamental  problems  of  the  text 
of  the  Old  Testament  in  their  relation  to  the  source  criticism 
are  presented  in  a  new  light  in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  Amer¬ 
ican  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages. 4  Relations  of  geography 
with  human  life  are  discussed  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  American 
Geographical  Society  and  the  Journal  of  Geography A  Certain 
questions  connected  with  legal  matters  are  taken  up  in  un¬ 
signed  reviews  in  the  American  Law  Review: 6  The  Hittite  in¬ 
scriptions  secured  by  the  Cornell  Expedition  have  been  pub¬ 
lished;7  it  is  hoped  that  other  results  may  be  published  in  the 
near  future. 

For  the  illustrations  of  the  volume,  heartiest  thanks  must 
be  given  to  the  friends  who  have  so  generously  placed  their 
material  at  the  author’s  disposal.  The  new  material  from  the 
excavations  at  Ashur,  in  the  hands  of  scholars  only  in  the  last 
few  months,  has  been  utilised  through  the  kind  offices  of  the 
publishers,  Messrs.  J.  C.  Hinrichs,  and  the  Deutsche  Orient- 
Gesellschaft  (Figs.  14-28).  From  their  publications  also  the 
maps  and  plans  from  Ashur  have  been  redrawn.  Until  the 
appearance  of  the  recent  catalogue,  the  beautiful  reliefs  from 
Dur  Sharrukin  have  been  known  only  in  drawings  two  genera¬ 
tions  old;  through  the  kindness  of  the  editor  of  the  catalogue, 
M.  E.  Pottier,  for  the  first  time  a  general  history  can  present 
them  in  all  their  art  (Figs.  90,  110-114,  117-118,  140, 149, 150, 
162-166,  171).  While  in  Babylon,  Doctor  Robert  Koldewey 

1  Near  East  Problems  in  the  Second  Pre-Christian  Millennium,  Jour.  Egypt.  Arch., 
VIII,  223  ff. 

2  Oriental  Imperialism,  Amer.  Hist.  Rev.,  XXIII,  755  ff. 

3  Assyrian  Government  of  Dependencies,  Amer.  Pol.  Science  Rev.,  XII,  63  fif. 

4 Source  Study  and  the  Biblical  Text,  AJSL.,  XXX,  1  fif.;  The  Earliest  Book  of 
Kings,  ibid.,  XXXI,  169  ff.;  The  Greek  Genesis,  ibid.,  XXXIV,  145  ff.;  cf.  The 
Reform  of  Josiah  and  Its  Secular  Aspects,  Amer.  Hist.  Rev.,  XX,  566  ff. 

5  Climatic  Changes  in  the  Nearer  East,  Bull.  Amer.  Geog.  Soc.,  XLIV,  432  ff.; 
Climatic  Changes,  ibid.,  XLV,  439  ff.;  Climate  and  History,  Jour,  of  Geography , 
X,  163  ff. 

6  Cf.  especially  Amer.  Law  Rev.,  L,  316  ff. 

7  Olmstead,  Charles,  Wrench,  Hittite  Inscriptions,  1911. 


XIV 


PREFACE 


was  good  enough  to  permit  us  to  photograph  the  Hittite  Re¬ 
lief  there  discovered  (Fig.  84). 

Virtually  every  Assyrian  object  now  in  America  has  been 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  author.  Of  the  numerous  ex¬ 
amples  of  the  reliefs  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  scattered  through  the 
country,  selections  have  been  made  from  those  in  the  New 
York  Historical  Society  (Figs.  54,  55,  57),  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  (Fig.  80),  Auburn  Theological  Seminary  (Fig.  53), 
through  the  kindness  of  Professor  W.  J.  Hinke,  and  Bowdoin 
College  (Fig.  58),  through  the  kindness  of  Professor  H.  E. 
Andrews.  Professor  A.  T.  Clay  secured  for  me  the  photograph 
of  the  earliest  Assyrian  annals,  that  of  Arik-den-ilu,  from  the 
library  of  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan  (Fig.  33),  and,  with  the  Yale  Uni¬ 
versity  Press,  gave  permission  for  the  reproduction  of  the 
copies  of  the  Babylonian  Dictionary  (Fig.  34),  the  Prism  of 
Esarhaddon  (Fig.  169),  and  the  Assyrian  Vase  with  Relief 
(Fig.  159).  The  series  of  photographs  from  casts,  showing 
the  details  of  the  sculptures  more  clearly  than  the  now  weath¬ 
ered  originals,  have  been  secured  from  the  Metropolitan  Mu¬ 
seum  (Figs.  45,  46,  50,  77, 155, 156, 157, 158)  and  the  University 
of  Illinois  (Figs.  44,  49).  The  precious  prism  of  Sennacherib, 
now  in  Haskell  Museum  of  the  University  of  Chicago  (Fig. 
126),  has  been  secured  through  the  courtesy  of  Professors  J. 
H.  Breasted,  D.  D.  Luckenbill,  and  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  and  of 
the  University  of  Chicago  Press,  as  was  Fig.  91  and  the  photo¬ 
graph  of  Ashur  (Fig.  11),  where  we  were  not  permitted  to  take 
pictures  at  the  time  of  our  visit. 

Illustrations  not  otherwise  credited  come  from  the  photo¬ 
graphs  made  by  the  members  of  the  Department  of  Semitic 
Languages  of  Cornell  University  who  spent  the  year  1904- 
1905  in  Palestine  and  Syria  under  the  direction  of  Professor 
Nathaniel  Schmidt,  or  from  those  by  the  Cornell  Expedition 
in  1907-1908.  They  were  all  taken  by  Doctor  B.  B.  Charles, 
Professor  J.  E.  Wrench,  and  the  author.  Doctor  B.  B.  Charles 
has  further  placed  the  author  under  obligation  by  securing 
such  excellent  results  from  the  films,  taken  so  often  under  the 
most  difficult  circumstances.  To  the  labours  of  these  two 
friends,  the  greater  part  of  the  illustrations  is  due. 


PREFACE 


xv 


Complete  acknowledgment  of  favours  received  would  fill 
many  pages.  The  book  owed  its  first  inspiration  to  the  classes 
in  Oriental  history  given  by  Professor  Nathaniel  Schmidt  of 
Cornell  University;  to  him  the  author  owes  his  knowledge  of  the 
Oriental  languages;  with  him,  when  director  of  the  Jerusalem 
School,  he  spent  his  first  year  in  the  enchanted  East.  It  is  no 
less  than  his  due  that  this  book  bears  his  name  in  dedication. 

History  without  historical  method  is  not  history;  it  is  to 
the  patient  care  exercised  by  Professor  G.  L.  Burr,  from  fresh¬ 
man  class  to  doctoral  dissertation,  that  the  historical  point 
of  view  is  owed.  The  late  Professor  J.  R.  S.  Sterrett  was  re¬ 
sponsible  for  the  second  trip  to  the  Near  East  and  his  devoted 
sacrifices  in  the  securing  of  funds  and  his  personal  knowledge 
of  the  field  made  the  work  of  the  Cornell  Expedition  possible. 
Nor  would  acknowledgment  to  his  Cornell  instructors  be  com¬ 
plete  without  mention  of  the  late  Professor  H.  A.  Sill  in  Greek 
and  Roman  History,  Professor  C.  H.  Hull  in  American  His¬ 
tory,  the  late  Professor  C.  L.  Bennett  in  Latin,  Professor  G. 
P.  Bristol  in  GreekJ  Professor  E.  P.  Andrews  in  Archaeology. 

Whatever  of  value  was  obtained  from  his  visits  to  the  Near 
East  was  due  in  the  first  instance  to  the  loyal  co-operation  of 
his  companions,  Professor  J.  E.  Wrench  of  the  University  of 
Missouri  and  Doctor  B.  B.  Charles  of  Philadelphia.  Am¬ 
bassador  Leishman  and  his  staff,  Consuls  Merrill  and  Magels- 
sen,  now  deceased,  and  Consuls  Harris,  Jackson,  and  Young, 
eased  many  difficulties  with  the  authorities,  and  a  host  of 
missionary  friends  gave  their  aid.  Two  who  are  now  at  rest, 
Mr.  J.  E.  Fowle  of  Talas  and  Doctor  A.  N.  Andrus  of  Mardin, 
demand  special  mention. 

Aid  has  often  been  asked  in  this  country  and  the  author 
has  not  been  disappointed.  In  so  far  as  was  possible  with 
so  different  a  people,  this  book  has  been  modelled  on  the  His¬ 
tory  of  Egypt  by  Professor  J.  H.  Breasted  of  the  University 
of  Chicago;  through  his  kindness  arrangements  have  been 
made  for  its  publication  as  a  companion  volume,  and  the  au¬ 
thor  has  often  “gone  down  to  Egypt  for  help,”  and  with  better 
success  than  the  ancient  Hebrews.  Professor  D.  D.  Lucken- 


XVI 


PREFACE 


bill  has  read  the  manuscript  and  his  unrivalled  knowledge  as 
editor  of  the  Assyrian  Dictionary  has  saved  many  annoying 
slips  or  worse.  From  the  same  institution  much  aid  has  been 
secured  from  Professor  I.  M.  Price,  Doctor  T.  G.  Allen,  and 
Professor  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  who  as  editor  of  the  American  Jour¬ 
nal  of  Semitic  Languages  has  welcomed  his  articles,  suffered 
his  peculiar  notions,  and  given  him  good  advice. 

With  other  Orientalists  the  author  has  debated  common 
problems,  especially  at  the  meetings  of  the  American  Oriental 
Society.  Professor  A.  T.  Clay  of  Yale  University,  the  late 
Professor  M.  Jastrow  and  Professor  J.  A.  Montgomery  of  the* 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  Professor  T.  J.  Meek  of  Bryn 
Mawr  College,  President  Julian  Morgenstern  of  Hebrew  Union 
College,  such  are  some  of  the  names  to  be  remembered. 

Among  professed  historians,  Professor  L.  M.  Larson  of  the 
University  of  Illinois  has  read  the  entire  manuscript  and  made 
valuable  suggestions.  The  unrivalled  knowledge  of  the  more 
modern  phases  of  Near  Eastern  history  owned  by  his  colleague, 
Professor  A.  H.  Lybyer,  has  illumined  many  an  older  problem. 
With  Professor  M.  Rostovtzeff  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin 
valued  debates  on  the  land  system  have  occurred. 

This  history  would  have  been  in  the  press  years  ago  had  it 
not  been  desired  to  use  the  Assyrian  letters;  that  it  appears 
thus  early  is  due  to  Professor  Leroy  Waterman  of  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Michigan.  With  unhoped-for  generosity,  the  manu¬ 
script  of  his  edition  Correspondence  of  the  Assyrian  Kings , 
which  is  soon  to  appear  in  the  University  of  Michigan  Human¬ 
istic  Studies ,  was  placed  at  the  author’s  disposal.  Passages 
which  for  fifteen  years  had  defied  understanding  slipped  into 
their  historical  niches  after  his  insight  had  made  all  things 
clear.  To  no  other  scholar  does  the  book  owe  so  much. 

This  preface  should  not  close  without  at  least  brief  men¬ 
tion  of  the  illuminating  discussions  with  the  author’s  wife. 

A.  T.  Olmstead. 


Urbana,  Illinois, 
September,  1923. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface . vii 

Abbreviations . xx 

CHAPTER 

•I.  At  Home  in  the  Desert .  1 

•II.  Men  of  the  Earth  Mother  . .  7 

*  III.  The  Winning  of  the  Sown . 21 

*  IV.  The  Balance  of  Power . 33 

*  V.  The  First  Empire . 45 

"‘VI.  Tiglath  Pileser  I  and  the  New  World  ...  62 

VII.  Dark  Centuries . 70 

•VIII.  The  Calculated  Frightfulness  of  Ashur-nasir- 

apal . 81 

IX.  In  the  Palace  of  the  King . 98 

X.  The  Threat  of  Ararat . 110 

XI.  First  Contacts  with  Israel . 124 

XII.  The  Great  Revolt . 145 

XIII.  Woman’s  Rule,  Approach  to  Monotheism,  and 

Decline . 158 

'  XIV.  The  Restoration — Tiglath  Pileser  III  .  175 

XV.  Ararat  in  Syria  and  the  Northern  Judah  .  .  182 

XVI.  The  Last  Days  of  Israel . 191 

XVII.  Sargon  and  the  Syrian  Settlement  ....  206 

XVIII.  Rusash  of  Haldia  and  “Golden”  Midas  .  .  .  221 

XIX.  Purple  Patches  of  a  Historian . 229 


XVI 1 


xviii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAQH 

XX.  Deioces  and  the  Median  Foundations  .  .  243 

XXI.  Merodach  Baladan  the  Chaldean  .  .  .  250 

XXII.  Letters  from  the  Armenian  Front  .  .  .  258 

XXIII.  Sargonsburg . 268 

XXIV.  Sennacherib  and  the  Babylonian  Problem  .  283 

^XXV.  Isaiah  and  the  Siege  of  Jerusalem  .  .  .  297 

XXVI.  Sennacherib  the  Craftsman . 316 

XXVII.  Esarhaddon  and  the  Restoration  of  Babylon  337 

XXVIII.  Secrets  of  the  Liver  Omens  and  Greek  Con¬ 
tributions  to  a  Palace . 358 

XXIX.  Egypt  at  Last! . 374 

XXX.  Harem  Intrigues  for  a  Throne  ....  386 

■f 

XXXI.  Brotherly  Settlements . 405 

XXXII.  The  Loss  of  Egypt  and  Lydia . 415 

XXXIII.  The  Intrigues  of  Elam . 431 

XXXIV.  The  Failure  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  .  .  440 

XXXV.  Bel-ibni,  the  Viceroy . 453 

XXXVI.  The  Decision  of  the  Gods;  the  Death  of 

Shamash-shum-ukin . 468 

XXXVII.  Laying  the  Foundations  of  Chald/£an  Em¬ 
pire  . . 476 

XXXVIII.  A  Royal  Scholar . 489 

XXXIX.  Heirs  of  the  Ages . 504 

XL.  The  Assyrian  Manor . 510 

XLI.  The  Imperial  Free  City . 525 


CONTENTS  xix 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XLII.  Business  Archives . 542 

'  XLIII.  The  Arts  and  Life . -  .  555 

XLIV.  The  Reed  Stylus  of  the  Scribe . 573 

XLV.  Divine  Mysteries . 584 

XL VI.  Our  Lord  King . 598 

XL VII.  Ashur,  the  King-God . 612 

XL  VIII.  Tragedy . 627 

XLIX.  The  “ Assyrian  Wolf” . 645 

Index  of  Proper  Names . 659 

Index  of  Subjects . 681 


ABBREVIATIONS 


AJSL. 

BA. 

CIS. 

CT. 

H. 


J. 

JAOS. 

JRAS. 

KB. 

KU. 

MDOG. 

MV  AG. 

OLZ. 

PSBA. 

R. 

RA. 

RT. 

TSBA. 

VS. 

ZA. 


American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages. 

Beitrage  zur  Assyriologie. 

Corpus  Inscriptionum  Semiticarum. 

Cuneiform  Texts  in  the  British  Museum. 

R.  F.  Harper,  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  Letters ;  the  trans¬ 
lation  has  been  in  large  part  based  on  the  manuscript 
by  Leroy  Waterman,  Correspondence  of  the  Assyrian 
Kings ,  to  be  published  in  the  University  of  Michigan 
Humanistic  Studies. 

C.  H.  W.  Johns,  Assyrian  Deeds  and  Documents. 

Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society. 

Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society. 

Keilinschriftliche  Bibliothek. 

Kohler  and  Ungnad,  Assyrische  Rechtsurkunden. 
Mittheilungen  der  Deutschen  Orient-Gesellschaft. 
Mittheilungen  der  vorderasiatische  Gesellschaft. 
Orientalistische  Liter aturzeitung. 

Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology. 

H.  Rawlinson,  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  of  Western  Asia. 
Revue  d’ Assyriologie. 

Recueil  de  Travaux. 

Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology 
V orderasiatische  Schriftdenkmaler . 

Zeitschrift  fur  Assyriologie. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Palace  Gate  at  Dur  Sharrukin .  Frontispiece 

FIG.  FACING  PAGE 

1.  Black  Goat’s  Hair  Tent  of  the  Arab .  2 

2.  Arab  of  the  Tai  Tribe,  the  Noblest  Tribe  of  Arabia  .  .  2 

3.  More  than  Half  Savage  Shepherds .  2 

4.  Anat,  the  Beautiful  Island  Town  on  the  Euphrates  .  .  4 

5.  Flower-Covered  Prairie  in  Spring .  4 

6.  Palms  against  the  Setting  Sun .  4 

7.  Palm  Garden  with  Mud  Brick  Wall  by  Side  of  Canal  .  8 

8.  An  Affluent  of  the  Tigris,  the  Diyala .  8 

9.  Prehistoric  Idol  (Armenia) . 10 

10.  Neolithic  Objects  from  Asia  Minor . 10 

11.  Ashur,  First  Assyrian,  Capital . 12 

(From  Breasted,  Amer.  Jour.  Semitic  Languages ,  XXXVIII,  276.) 

12.  Arbela,  Home  of  the  Prophetic  Goddess  Ishtar  ...  12 

13.  Nineveh,  the  Late  Assyrian  Capital . 12 

14.  Head  of  Noble  Lady  from  Ashur  (Restored)  ....  14 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  28.) 

15.  Pottery  and  Other  Small  Objects  from  Grave  ....  14 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  60.) 

16.  Gypsum  Statue  of  a  Noble  (Ashur) . 16 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  30.) 

17.  Copper  Statuette  of  a  Lady  (Ashur) . 16 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  58.) 

18.  Gypsum  Statue  of  a  Lady  (Ashur) . 16 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  37.) 

xxi 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


xxii 

FIG.  FACING  PAGE 

19.  Shrine  of  Ishtar  Temple  at  Ashur  (Early  Period).  Page  18 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  11a.) 

20.  Earliest  Temple  of  the  Mother  Goddess  at  Ashur  .  .  18 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  10.) 

21.  Ivory  Figure  from  Ashur . Page  19 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  p.  56.) 

22.  Clay  Model  of  House  Used  in  Ishtar  Cult  (Ashur)  .  .  22 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  15.) 

23.  Model  of  Chariot  (Ashur) . 22 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  61.) 

24.  Metal  Mould  (Ashur) . 22 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  55.) 

25-28.  Clay  Models  of  Ishtar  Used  in  the  Cult  (Ashur)  .  .  24 

(From  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  52,  55,  56.) 

29.  The  Euphrates,  a  Lazily  Moving,  Chocolate-Coloured 

Stream  in  the  Alluvium . 26 

30.  The  Middle  Tigris  at  Amedi . 26 

31.  Snow-Clad  Summit  of  Argseus . 28 

32.  Mount  Argaeus,  the  Highest  Mountain  of  Asia  Minor  .  28 

33.  Earliest  Assyrian  Annals  (Arik-den-ilu)  (Morgan  Library)  42 

(Photograph,  courtesy  of  Professor  A.  T.  Clay.) 

34.  Assyrian  Dictionary  (Yale  Babylonian  Collection)  .  .  42 

(From  Clay,  Miscellaneous  Inscriptions,  pi.  LV.) 

35.  Byblus,  the  Oldest  Phoenician  City . 64 

36.  The  Earliest  Site  of  Tyre . 64 

37.  The  Gardens  of  Sidon . 66 

38.  Altar  in  a  Phoenician  Temple  at  Sidon . 66 

39.  The  Gate  to  the  Kashiari  (Mardin) . 76 

40.  A  Village  Hidden  in  the  Kashiari  (Kullith)  ....  76 

41.  Kurds  of  Asia  Minor . 78 

42.  A  Man  of  the  Kashiari . 78 

43.  Peasant  Girl  of  Mesopotamia . 78 

% 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


xxm 


FIO.  FACING  PAGE 

44.  Ashur-nasir-apal  Hunting  the  Lion . 82 

(From  cast  at  the  University  of  Illinois.) 

45.  Ashur-nasir-apal  Besieging  a  City . 84 

(From  cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 


46.  Officials  Conduct  to  Ashur-nasir-apal  a  Captive  King  .  88 

(From  cast  in-Metropolitan  Museum.) 


47. 

Ashur-nasir-apal  Crossing  the  Euphrates  . 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  I,  15.) 

•  • 

90 

48. 

Shadudu  Escaping  by  Swimming  the  Euphrates  . 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  I,  22.) 

•  • 

90 

49. 

Ashur-nasir-apal  Hunting  the  Wild  Bull 

(From  cast  at  the  University  of  Illinois.) 

•  • 

92 

50. 

Ashur-nasir-apal  Returns  in  Triumph  .... 

(From  cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 

•  • 

94 

51. 

Rock-Cut  Tomb  Monuments  at  Amurru  . 

•  • 

96 

52. 

Knife-Edge  Rock  in  the  Kashiari . 

•  • 

96 

53. 

Winged  Genius  Fertilising  the  Sacred  Tree  with 
Spathe.  (Auburn  Theological  Seminary) 

(Photograph,  courtesy  of  Professor  W.  J.  Hinke.) 

Palm 

•  • 

100 

54. 

Tree  of  Life . 

(Photograph,  courtesy  of  N.  Y.  Historical  Society.) 

102 

55. 

Eagle-Headed  Figure . 

(Photograph,  courtesy  of  N.  Y.  Historical  Society.) 

102 

56. 

Embroidery  on  Ashur-nasir-apal’s  Dress  . 

(From  Ward,  Seal  Cylinders,  p.  221.) 

Page 

103 

57. 

Ashur-nasir-apal  with  Offering  Bowl  .... 

•  • 

104 

(Photograph,  courtesy  of  N.  Y.  Historical  Society.) 


58.  Ashur-nasir-apal  with  Attendant.  (Bowdoin  College)  .  104 


(Photograph,  courtesy  of  Professor  H.  E.  Andrews.) 

59.  Tribute  of  Monkeys . Page  106 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  I,  23.) 

60.  Entrance  with  Human-Headed  Bulls,  Palace  of  Ashur- 

nasir-apal  . 106 

61.  Corner  of  Room  in  Palace  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  .  .  .  106 

62.  The  Present  Tigris  Tunnel . 116 


XXIV 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FIG.  FACING  PAGE 

63.  Older  Tigris  Tunnel . 116 

64.  The  Exit  from  the  Tigris  Tunnel . 118 

65.  Edessa,  Perhaps  Kaprabi . 118 

66.  Mesopotamian  Water-Wheel . 120 

67.  Lion  from  Sarugi . 120 

68.  Shalmaneser  and  His  Soldiers . 126 

(From  Revue  Archeologique,  IV,  22.) 

69.  Tribute  of  Tyre . 126 

(From  Revue  Archeologique,  IV,  23.) 

70.  In  the  Great  Swamp  of  North  Syria . 128 

71.  The  Orontes  at  Antioch . 128 

72.  Samal,  Capital  of  the  Northern  Judah . 128 

73.  Singara,  at  the  Head  of  the  Tartara . 130 

74.  Aleppo,  Chief  City  of  North  Syria . 130 

75.  The  Mound  at  Hamath . 136 

76.  Water-Wheel  in  the  Orontes  at  Hamath . 136 

77.  Black  Obelisk  of  Shalmaneser  III . 140 

(From  cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 

78.  The  Syrian  Gates . 142 

79.  Washing  out  Silver  at  the  “Bulgarian  Mines”  .  .  .  142 

80.  Eunuch  Official  of  Ashur-nasir-apal . 164 

(Photograph,  courtesy  of  Metropolitan  Museum.) 

81.  Statue  of  God  Nabu . 164 

82.  Spoil  of  Sapea . Page  179 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  I,  58.) 

83.  Rock-Cut  Inscription  of  Sardurishi . 184 

84.  Teshub,  the  Hittite  Weather  God  . . 184 

85.  Paved  Street  (Samal) . 186 

86.  Palace  Facade  (Samal) . 186 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


XXV 


FIG-  FACING  PAGE 

87.  Carved  Figure  (Samal) . 186 

88.  Beehive  Village  in  North  Syria . 186 

89.  Pursuit  of  an  Arab . Page  199 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  I,  57.) 

90.  Sargon  and  His  Chief  Officials . 208 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  28-30;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

91.  Bar  Rekub  of  Samal  and  His  Scribe . 208 

(From  Amer.  Jour.  Semitic  Languages,  XXII,  247.) 

92.  Sargon  the  King . 210 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  27.) 

93.  Ashur-isqa-danin,  His  Turtanu . 210 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  28.) 

94.  Comana,  Home  of  the  Cappadocian  Mother  Goddess  .  222 

95.  Tomb  of  Midas  at  the  Midas  City  in  Phrygia  .  .  .  222 

96.  Hittite  King  before  His  God . 224 

97.  Sacrifice  to  the  God  Teshub . 224 

98.  The  Level  Line  of  the  Taurus  from  the  North  .  .  .  226 

99.  A  Village  in  a  Nook  of  the  Taurus . 226 

100.  Sargon’s  Camp . Page  230 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  II,  146.) 

101.  Plunder  of  the  “Greek”  Temple  at  Musasir  .  .  .  240 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  II,  141.) 

102.  Weighing  out  the  Booty  of  Musasir . 240 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  II,  140.) 

103.  Median  Chief  Presenting  City  Model . 244 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  I,  36.) 

104.  Siege  of  a  Median  City . 244 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  I,  77.) 

105.  Seal  of  Urzana,  King  of  Musasir . Page  265 

(From  Ward,  Seal  Cylinders,  p.  203.) 

106.  Dur  Sharrukin,  Capital  of  Sargon . 270 

107.  The  Hill  of  Ophel  (Earliest  Jerusalem) 


270 


XXVI 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FIG.  FACING  PAGE 

108.  Bringing  Cedar  from  the  Lebanon  ....  Page  273 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  I,  33.) 

109.  Winged  Genius . 274 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  16.) 

110.  Winged  Genius  (Louvre) . 274 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  18;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

J 

111.  Figure  Offering  (Louvre) . 276 


(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  26;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

112.  Gilgamesh  and  the  Lion  (Louvre) . 276 

(From  Mustie  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  17;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

113.  Assyrian  Archery  (Louvre) . 278 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  41;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

114.  The  Royal  Stud  (Louvre) . 278 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  38;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

115.  Garden  Scene:  the  “Ionic”  Temple  ......  280 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  II,  114.) 

116.  Palace  at  Dur  Sharrukin  (Restoration) . 280 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  18  bis.) 

117.  Bringing  the  Tables  for  the  Banquet  (Louvre)  .  .  .  282 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  33-35 ;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

118.  Drinking  Cups  and  the  State  Chariot  (Louvre)  .  .  .  282 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  36-37 ;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

119.  Crow  and  Bull  in  Glazed  Bricks  (Palace  of  Sargon)  .  284 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  30.) 

120.  Tree  and  Plough  in  Glazed  Bricks  (Palace  of  Sargon)  .  284 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  31.) 

121.  Fighting  in  the  Babylonian  Marshes  ....  Page  286 

(From  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  p.  585.) 

122.  Burning  of  a  City  in  the  Lebanon . 298 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  I,  74.) 

123.  Philistines  with  Feathered  Head-dress . 298 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  II,  33.) 


124. 


Cedars  of  Lebanon 


304 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xxvii 

FIG.  FACING  PAGE 

125.  Terraced  Slopes  of  the  Lebanon . 304 

126.  Prism  of  Sennacherib . 306 

(Prom  Breasted,  Amer.  Jour.  Semitic  Languages ,  XXXVIII,  285.) 

127.  Siege  of  Lachish . 308 

(From  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  II,  21.) 

128.  Siege  of  City  in  Asia  Minor . 308 

(Prom  Layard,  Monuments  of  Nineveh,  II,  40.) 

129.  Transportation  of  the  Human-Headed  Bull  .  .  Page  323 

(From  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  p.  113.) 

130.  Wild  Sow  with  Young . Page  331 

(From  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  p.  109.) 

131.  Entrance  to  Gorge  at  Bavian . 332 

132.  Bull  from  Sennacherib’s  Water  Works  at  Bavian  .  .  332 

133.  “Squeezing”  an  Inscription  of  Sennacherib  at  Bavian  .  334 

134.  Warrior  on  Painted  Brick . 334 

(From  G.  Smith,  Assyrian  Discoveries,  op.  p.  80.) 

135.  A  Gufa  or  Reed  Boat  Pitched  with  Bitumen  .  .  .  350 

136.  Ruins  of  the  Temple  of  Ezida  at  Borsippa  ....  350 

137.  “Tomb  of  the  Prophet  Jonah” . 370 

138.  “Nineveh  Shall  Become  a  Waste” . 370 

139.  Alabaster  Model  of  Sphinx . 372 

(From  G.  Smith,  Assyrian  Discoveries,  op.  p.  174.) 

140.  Human-Headed  Bull . 372 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  14;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

141.  Dry  Bed  of  the  “River  of  Egypt”  on  the  Desert  Road 

from  Palestine  to  the  Nile  Valley . 380 

142.  Camel-Drivers  on  the  Desert  Road  from  Palestine  to 

Egypt . 380 

143.  Arabs  Drawing  Water  in  the  Desert  Country  South  of 

Palestine . .  382 

144.  Water  Works  at  Negub . 382 

145.  Bay  of  Accho . 384 


xxviii  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FIG.  FACING  PAGE 

146.  Relief  of  Esarhaddon  Side  by  Side  with  That  of  the 

Egyptian  Ramses  II  at  the  Dog  River . 384 

147.  The  Acropolis  at  Sardis . 416 


148.  View  from  the  Acropolis  of  Sardis . 416 

149.  Ashur-bani-apal  in  His  Chariot  (Louvre)  ....  442 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  62;  courtesy  of 

M.  E.  Pottier.) 

150.  Musicians  and  Soldiers  of  Ashur-bani-apal  (Louvre)  .  442 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  66;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

151.  Door-Sill  in  the  Palace  of  Ashur-bani-apal  ....  494 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  49.) 


152.  Netting  the  Deer  . . 494 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  56.) 

153.  Lion  Escaping  from  Cage . 496 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  50.) 


154.  Hunting  the  Lion  from  the  Chariot . 496 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  56.) 


155-156.  Lion  Hunt  on  Horseback . 498 

(From  cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 

157.  Hunting  Wild  Asses . 500 

(From  cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 

158.  Banquet  of  Ashur-bani-apal  and  His  Queen,  Ashur- 

sharrat . 502 

(From  cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 

159.  Assyrian  Vase  with  Relief . 560 


(From  Nies  and  Keiser,  Babylonian  Inscriptions,  II,  pi.  LXX.) 

160.  Glass  and  Alabaster  Vessels  with  Name  of  Sargon  Page  561 

(From  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  p.  197.) 

161.  Carved  Ivory  in  the  Egyptian  Style  ....  Page  562 

(From  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Its  Remains,  II,  op.  p.  166.) 


162.  Assyrian  Demon  (Louvre) . 564 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  146;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

163.  God  on  Animal  (Louvre) . 564 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  144;  courtesy  of 


M.  E.  Pottier.) 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


XXIX 


FIG.  FACING  PAGE 

164.  Assyrian  Deity  (Louvre) . 564 


(From  Mus6e  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  213;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

165.  Terra-Cotta  Antefix  to  Building  (Louvre)  ....  564 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  192;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 


166.  Bronze  Bracelet  (Louvre) . 564 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  166;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

167.  Phoenician  Shield  Found  in  Crete,  Egyptian  Design  .  568 

168.  Phoenician  Shield  Found  in  Crete,  Assyrian  Design  .  .  570 


169.  Cylinder  of  Esarhaddon  (Yale  Babylonian  Collection)  .  574 

(From  Clay,  Miscellaneous  Inscriptions,  pi.  LIII.) 

170.  Late  Copy  of  the  Earlier  Pictographs . 574 

(From  Transactions  of  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology,  VI,  op.  p.  454.) 

171.  Assyrian  Camp  and  Soldiers  (Louvre) . 602 

(From  Musee  du  Louvre,  Antiquites  Assyriennes,  67;  courtesy  of 
M.  E.  Pottier.) 

172.  Underground  Stairs  (Fort  in  Asia  Minor)  ....  602 

173.  Assyrian  Standard . Page  603 

(From  Botta  and  Flandin,  Monuments  de  Ninive,  158.) 

174.  Procession  of  Assyrian  Gods . Page  615 

(From  Place,  Ninive,  pi.  45.) 

175.  Reputed  Tomb  of  the  Prophet  Nahum  at  Elkosh  .  .  642 

176.  Descendants  of  the  “Lost  Ten  Tribes”  in  Their  Home 

in  Mesopotamia . 642 


MAPS 


MAP  PAGE 

1.  The  Ishtar  Temple  at  Ashur . 17 

(Redrawn  from  Andrae,  Ischtar  Tempel,  pi.  3.) 

2.  Development  of  the  Assyrian  Empire  (1340-860)  .  .  46 

(Drawn  by  George  C.  Hewes.) 

3.  Development  of  the  Assyrian  Empire  (860-626)  ...  47 

(Drawn  by  George  C.  Hewes.) 

4.  The  City  of  Kalhu . 101 

(From  Layard,  Nineveh  and  Its  Remains,  I,  op.  p.  272.) 

5.  Gate  of  the  Metal  Worker  at  Ashur . 149 

(Redrawn  from  Andrae,  Festungswerke,  pi.  XXXII.) 

6.  Festival  House  of  Sennacherib  at  Ashur . 317 

(Redrawn  from  Mitth.  Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft,  33,  op.  p.  28.) 

7.  Palace  of  Sennacherib  at  Nineveh . 325 

(From  Trans.  Soc.  Biblical  Archaeology,  VII,  op.  p.  37.) 

8.  Nineveh  as  Restored  by  Sennacherib . 327 

9.  Palace  of  Ashur-bani-apal  at  Nineveh . 497 

(From  Trans.  Soc.  Biblical  Archaeology,  VII,  op.  p.  37.) 

10.  The  “Red  House’’  at  Ashur . 556 

(Redrawn  from  Mitth.  Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft,  31,  op.  p.  44.) 

11.  Early  Assyrian  House  at  Ashur . 557 

(Redrawn  from  Mitth.  Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft,  28,  op.  p.  7.) 

12.  Nabu  Temple  of  Sin-shar-ishkun  at  Ashur  ....  629 

(Redrawn  from  Mitth.  Deutsche  Orient-Gesellschaft,  38,  op.  p.  44.) 

13.  The  Near  East  (1000-600) . At  end  of  volume 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


CHAPTER  I 


AT  HOME  IN  THE  DESERT 


Ashur,  the  tiny  city-state  on  the  middle  Tigris,  gave  its 
name  to  the  mighty  empire  which  grew  from  its  first  rude  be¬ 
ginnings,  even  as  it  took  its  name  from  the  imperial  deity  be¬ 
fore  whom  all  other  national  gods  were  to  bow  the  knee;  for 
the  first  history  of  the  Assyrians  we  must  go  hundreds  of  miles 
and  thousands  of  years  away  from  the  earliest  Ashur.  The 
Assyrians  were  Semites  and  as  such  found  their  first  historical 
home  in  the  Arabian  peninsula. 

Speculation  as  to  the  first  home  of  man,  where  he  was  dif¬ 
ferentiated  from  his  Simian  cousins,  is  for  the  present  vain, 
but  we  may  be  sure  it  was  not  Arabia.  It  is  equally  vain  to 
speculate  as  to  the  manner  in  which  man  was  divided  into  so 
many  races  and  as  to  how  one  particular  group  became  fixed 
in  a  land  so  unfavourable  to  the  development  of  a  high  ma¬ 
terial  civilisation.  All  we  can  say  with  assurance  is  that  the 
Semites  did  come  to  live  in  the  Arabian  peninsula  and  it  is 
there  we  can  trace  their  first  history  in  the  days  before  his¬ 
tory  came  to  be  written. 

The  constant  tribal  struggles  which  make  the  greater  part  of 
Arabia  always  a  “No  Man’s  Land”  have  permitted  no  stu¬ 
dent  of  prehistoric  archseology  to  penetrate  the  sandy  wastes, 
and  we  cannot  as  yet  speak  of  prehistoric  man  on  the  firm 
basis  of  his  material  remains.  We  do  find  wonderfully  flaked 
flints  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula,  under  as  unfavourable  climatic 
and  soil  conditions  as  in  Arabia  proper.  The  same  types  of 
flaked  flints  occur  on  the  highlands  of  Palestine  to  the  north 

and  along  the  equally  sterile  rims  of  the  Nile  canyon.  The 

1 


2 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


most  early  man  known  had  a  considerable  range,  and  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  of  that  range  afford  some  support  to  the  theory 
that  in  remote  ages  when  man  was  first  emerging  from  the 
non-human  state,  the  now  desert  areas  of  the  Orient  enjoyed 
a  more  genial  climate. 

Whatever  the  conclusions  we  draw  as  to  the  times  before 
the  invention  of  writing,  our  earliest  written  records  show  us 
the  Semite  already  in  Arabia.  Here,  so  far  as  our  information 
permits  us  to  go,  was  his  “ first  home,”  and  here  certainly  a 
large  part  of  his  character  was  formed.  What  special  char¬ 
acteristics  he  brought  with  him.  who  shall  say  ?  Certain  knowl¬ 
edge  begins  with  Arabia. 

The  Arabian  peninsula  is  by  no  means  all  desert.  In  the 
southwest,  Yemen  is  to-day  a  land  of  high  breezy  plateaus 
and  running  waters,  with  a  large  and  industrious  population; 
in  the  days  before  Muhammad,  back  almost  three  thousand 
years  ago,  there  was  a  settled  civilisation  which  has  left  us  an 
abundance  of  monuments.  Across  the  centre  extends  a  belt 
of  comparatively  fertile  land  with  towns  of  some  size  and 
wealth.  Such  spots,  are,  however,  the  exception.  In  the  south¬ 
east  is  the  Dahna,  whose  waste  no  human  foot  has  been  known 
to  penetrate;  in  the  northwest  is  the  Lesser  Nefud,  not  im¬ 
possible  of  crossing,  but  yet  of  much  difficulty.  Equally  re¬ 
pellent  are  the  “ burnt  places”  one  finds  in  certain  sections. 

The  remainder  of  Arabia  is  simply  arid,  with  fertile  soil 
which  only  needs  the  life-giving  water  to  produce  the  most 
luxuriant  vegetation.  The  tiniest  spring  causes  a  verdure  to 
arise  whose  beauty  is  not  all  due  to  the  contrast  with  the  near¬ 
by  sands,  and  the  terribly  scanty  rains  of  the  winter  bring  a 
truly  marvellous  growth  in  the  few  days  the  torrid  sun  per¬ 
mits  it  to  endure.  In  these  few  days  and  at  these  few  oases, 
the  herdsman  feeds  and  waters  his  flocks.  Then  he  must  be 
off,  following  the  spring  rains  north  and  the  autumn  showers 
south. 

So  the  normal  civilisation  of  Arabia  is  the  nomadic.  Now 
and  then  a  family  may  settle  in  an  oasis  and  set  up  a  claim 
to  private  ownership.  The  amount  of  land  fit  for  cultivation 


Fig.  1.  BLACK  GOAT’S  HAIR  TENT  OF  THE  ARAB. 


Fig.  2.  ARAB  OF  THE  TAI  TRIBE,  THE 
NOBLEST  TRIBE  OF  ARABIA. 


Fig.  3.  MORE  THAN  HALF  SAVAGE 
SHEPHERDS  OF  THE  MESOPO¬ 
TAMIAN  PLAIN. 


AT  HOME  IN  THE  DESERT 


3 


is  strictly  limited  by  the  few  drops  of  the  oasis  spring  or  the 
water  which  can  be  retrieved  from  the  winter  torrent  before 
it  is  absorbed  by  the  never-satisfied  sands.  The  further  growth 
of  the  settlement  is  as  strictly  limited  by  the  amount  of  food 
which  can  be  produced  on  this  strictly  limited  amdunt  of  soil. 

In  the  rare  cases  where  there  is  enough  soil  and  water  to 
permit  the  dwelling  of  a  few  thousand  souls,  the  desert  still 
Cannot  be  ignored.  When  the  native  ascends  the  housetop 
in  the  evening,  the  desert  gleams  before  him,  and  its  rapid 
radiation  gives  Jhim  the  bitterly  cold  nights  which  permit  him 
to  endure  the  fierce  heats  of  the  day.  Its  sands  are  ever  in 
motion  and  ever  threatening  to  overwhelm  the  toil  of  cen¬ 
turies.  From  its  wide  spaces  may  at  any  moment  descend 
the  Bedawi,  whose  threat  is  of  a  more  sudden  though  not  of 
a  more  certain  danger  than  the  sands. 

Now  and  then  the  Bedawi  is  successful  in  killing  or  driving 
out  the  settler,  and  sometimes  he  decides  to  settle  down  for 
himself.  The  dispossessed  householder  finds  no  difficulty  in 
resuming  the  nomadic  life  his  ancestors  abandoned.  He  speaks 
the  same  language,  accepts  the  same  ideas,  and  in  his  heart 
of  hearts  he  had  already  admitted  the  superior  attractiveness 
of  the  nomad  life,  especially  when  in  his  green  oasis  the  wild 
bard  of  the  desert  chanted  the  raids  of  past  heroes.  So  he 
takes  to  the  desert  once  more,  perhaps  to  gain  renown  as  a 
robber,  perhaps  merely  to  be  a  caravan  leader. 

The  effect  of  the  nomad  life  is  easy  to  recognise.  Every 
citizen  was  at  least  potentially  a  wanderer.  Under  such  con¬ 
ditions,  we  do  not  expect  a  high  material  culture.  While  nearly 
six  thousand  years  of  written  history  have  surged  around  his 
home,  while  man  has  progressed  from  the  first  use  of  metals 
to  the  age  of  steel,  the  Bedawi  of  to-day  is  essentially  the  same 
as  he  was  at  the  beginning  of  that  long  period  of  development. 
To-day  he  does  carry  a  gun  worthy  a  place  in  any  antiquarian 
shop,  he  smokes  a  pretended  tobacco,  he  may  occasionally 
bring  to  his  tent  a  bit  of  cloth  from  Manchester  or  some  knick- 
knack  made  in  Germany,  but  his  material  life  has  changed 
as  little  as  his  intellectual  outlook.  His  home  is  still  the  long 


4 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


tent  of  black  goat’s  hair.  His  wealth  is  still  in  his  goats  and 
sheep,  his  camels  and  his  mares,  and  the  kids  still  nuzzle  the 
traveller  as  he  sleeps  under  the  flap  raised  to  catch  the  breeze. 
No  spot  of  land  is  his  own,  save  as  he  claims  the  areas  where 
his  ancestors  and  kinsmen  were  wont  to  pasture  their  flocks, 
the  north  and  south  passages  along  which  they  follow  the 
march  of  the  seasons. 

And  at  that,  he  does  not  possess  these  areas  in  security. 
He  plunders  the  half -sedentary  peasant,  and  in  turn  is  attacked 
by  the  other  tribes  who  would  enjoy  his  flocks  and  herds,  who 
could  raise  their  scanty  crop  of  barley  better  in  his  oasis,  and 
/  so  he  must  be  ever  on  his  guard.  No  civilised  state  has  such 
a  record  of  constant  warfare  as  the  Arab  tribe  close  to  a  “  state 
of  nature.”  However,  this  is  not  so  blood-curdling  a  state¬ 
ment  as  might  appear  at  first  glance.  The  chief  end  of  Arab 
war  is  booty,  not  slaughter,  for  the  side  which  lets  the  most 
blood  must  pay  indemnity  for  the  difference.  The  reason  for 
this  most  uncivilised  attitude  is  the  blood  revenge;  he  who 
kills  must  be  killed,  if  not  in  his  own  person,  then  in  that  of 
his  next  of  kin.  Bloodshed  in  war  may  therefore  be  consid¬ 
ered  an  unfortunate  accident. 

Periodically,  in  a  year  when  the  scanty  crops  fail  of  drought, 
when  the  rains  are  not  sufficient  for  the  pasturage  of  the  flock, 
when  there  is  an  excess  of  population,  when  a  genius  arises  to 
lead  them  to  a  promised  land,  when  some  accident  beyond 
our  ken  rouses  the  Bedawi  or  the  peasant  from  his  lethargy, 
there  comes  an  outpouring  of  the  nomads.  In  this  period  of 
confusion  and  turmoil,  there  is  turned  a  new  page  of  history. 

Then  indeed  we  have  a  surprise.  The  nomad  of  the  desert 
changes  his  character.  He  becomes  a  great  warrior  and  builds 
up  a  mighty  domain.  His  son  is  an  able  administrator,  and 
the  empire  grows  into  a  living  organism.  His  grandson  is  a 
patron  of  culture,  under  whose  protection  a  new  civilisation 
is  born. 

The  change  in  character  is  only  apparent,  for  he  is  still  the 
nomad  at  heart.  As  a  ruler,  he  is  never  content  with  what 
he  possesses,  he  must  always  advance  his  armies.  As  a  patron 


I  jr 


Fig.  5.  FLOWER-COVERED  PRAIRIE  IN  SPRING. 


Fig.  4.  ANAT,  THE 


BEAUTIFUL  ISLAND  TOWN  ON  THE 
EUPHRATES. 


Fig.  6.  PALMS  AGAINST  THE  SETTING  SUN. 


«B!S 


AT  HOME  IN  THE  DESERT 


5 


of  civilisation,  he  borrows  from  the  older  races  the  entire  basis 
of  his  culture,  but  when  he  has  done  with  it  every  phase  shows 
important  modification.  With  it  all  goes  a  certain  instability 
of  character.  Like  his  ancestor  in  the  desert,  quick  to  fly  to 
arms,  endowed  with  marvellous  patience  in  enduring  fatigue 
and  in  carrying  on  the  most  mighty  labours,  and  then  relapsing 
into  the  languid  life  of  complete  cessation  of  activity  around 
the  tent-pole,  the  civilised  Semite  is  quick  to  act,  patient  to 
execute,  sudden  to  stop.  The  same  is  true  of  his  mental  life. 
Often  indeed  he  transmits  and  improves,  but  rarely  does  he 
put  the  seal  of  even  approximate  finality  on  his  intellectual 
productions.  He  has  been  the  caravan  leader,  the  middle¬ 
man,  who  has  furnished  the  transportation  for  the  idea  or  the 
technology. 

Religion,  it  is  often  said,  is  his  special  contribution.  Seen 
in  his  own  desert  environment,  one  wonders  at  the  attribution. 
The  truth  is  that  the  Bedawi  is  as  nearly  without  religion  as 
any  man  of  similar  grade  in  civilisation.  To  our  sophisticated 
minds,  he  should  hear  the  voice  of  God  in  the  desert.  He  in 
truth  hears  but  the  faintest  whispers,  and  he  is  as  free  of  super¬ 
stition  as  of  formal  religion.  His  life  is  a  struggle  in  which 
nature  contributes  but  little,  and  to  himself  must  be  assigned 
credit  for  what  he  secures.  It  is  his  own  craft  which  brings 
him  flocks,  his  own  skill  that  defies  the  terrors  of  the  desert. 
Thus  he  is  a  rationalist  because  he  knows  the  worst,  and  he 
also  knows  that  within  himself  lies  such  slight  amelioration  as 
may  come.  His  life  is  a  struggle  against  the  extreme  and  it 
is  the  barest  of  existences.  Therefore,  the  economic  element 
is  the  clearest  and  religion  is  secondary. 

Such  religion  as  he  has  is  of  the  elements.  His  chief  god  is 
the  sun,  and  wherever  he  goes  the  basis  of  his  religion  is  solar. 
The  moon,  too,  is  a  chief  deity,  as  is  the  god  of  the  weather 
and  the  atmosphere.  All  are  familiar  friends,  whom  he  invites 
to  the  common  meal,  where  he  eats  with  them  the  lamb  he 
has  sacrificed,  and  offers  to  his  divine  companions  the  same 
luxuries  which  appeal  to  their  fellow  clansmen.  For  each  god 
has  his  special  favourite  among  the  tribes,  and  they  in  turn 


6 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


honour  him  most  without  denying  the  right  of  others  to  a  place 
in  their  esteem.  They  operate  on  the  basis  of  give  and  take, 
and  they  willingly  assist  those  who  honour  and  feed  them.  The 
clear  blistering  air  of  the  desert  rarely  favours  illusion,  and 
the  mirage  shows  the  reality  that  exists  elsewhere.  The  nomad 
comes  to  look  upon  his  gods  with  something  of  this  sanity. 
They  are  not  vague  and  mysterious,  with  ill-defined  powers 
and  functions;  each  is  carefully  assigned  to  his  proper  sphere, 
and  they  can  be  treated  as  men  grown  large.  As  for  the  dead, 
they  are  dead  and  that  is  about  the  end  of  the  matter.  Nomad 
faith  is  a  simple  faith,  which  nevertheless  has  in  it  potentiali¬ 
ties  of  a  real  fanaticism,  especially  when  it  is  combined  with 
the  idea  of  nationalism  and  with  the  hope  of  victorious  war. 


CHAPTER  II 


MEN  OF  THE  EARTH  MOTHER 

Arabia  moulded  the  character  of  the  Semite;  it  was  the 
Fertile  Crescent  which  made  him  civilised  and  gave  him  a  part 
in  world  history.  Indeed,  the  whole  story  of  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  area  is  that  of  a  struggle  between  the  nomads,  whether 
from  the  Arabian  desert  or  the  northern  grasslands,  and  the 
earlier  settled  population. 

The  Arabian  desert  is  not  an  isolated  phenomenon;  crossing 
the  narrow  Red  Sea  it  is  continued  in  the  Libyan  desert, 
broken  only  by  the  green  thread  of  the  Nile,  and  this  in  turn 
merges  without  boundary  into  the  vast  Sahara  which  ends 
only  with  the  Atlantic.  Eastward  it  passes  over  the  Persian 
Gulf,  traverses  sterile  hills,  and  turns  north  over  the  salt 
wastes  which  comprise  the  eastern  half  of  Persia.  Inside 
this  line  of  salt  desert  is  a  range  of  mountains.  At  first  their 
direction  is  not  far  from  north  and  south,  but  ultimately  their 
western  trend  becomes  more  pronounced  until  at  last  they 
turn  straight  west  through  Armenia  and  Asia  Minor  to  the 
iEgean.  With  the  fourth  side,  the  sea,  there  is  formed  the 
Fertile  Crescent. 

Egypt  is  a  part,  though  an  isolated  part,  of  the  Fertile 
Crescent,  for  a  tongue  of  desert  reaches  the  sea  at  its  northeast 
corner  and  separates  it  from  Syria.  Two  straight  north  and 
south  mountain  systems  divide  Palestine  and  Syria  into  vari¬ 
ous  almost  equally  isolated  areas.  Only  in  the  extreme  north 
does  Syria  open  into  the  great  plains  of  Mesopotamia  which 
stretch  to  Assyria  and  to  the  eastern  boundary  ranges,  or  to 
the  Persian  Gulf,  where,  at  the  beginning  of  human  settlement, 
Babylonia  was  in  process  of  formation.  This  is  the  Fertile 
Crescent,  varied  indeed  in  character,  but  with  one  factor 
common  to  all  parts :  it  is  a  narrow  strip  of  land  which  repays 

7 


I 


8 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


cultivation  while  on  all  sides  is  mountain  or  desert.  In  it  was 
first  developed  civilisation.  From  the  desert  bay  to  the  south 
and  the  encircling  ring  of  hills  to  the  north  and  east  came  the 
barbarians  who  would  destroy  it.1 

Man  came  early  to  the  Near  East.  Palseoliths  or  flaked 
flints  are  found  in  the  Nile  valley  and  scattered  over  the  desert 
on  either  side,  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula,  along  the  ridge  of 
Palestine,  through  Syria,  and  well  down  the  Euphrates;  none 
have  as  yet  been  found  in  the  Assyrian  country  proper,  but 
doubtless  that  is  due  to  lack  of  investigation.  Such  geological 
evidence  as  we  have  would  indicate  the  first  interdiluvial 
period  as  their  date,  and  this  would  correspond  to  the  first 
interglacial  age  of  the  north.  Prehistory  still  means  to  most 
students  merely  the  prehistory  of  western  Europe,  but  we 
are  beginning  to  suspect  that  its  culture  was  derived  from  the 
primitive  culture  of  the  Near  East.2 

Palaeolithic  man  has  left  us  his  handiwork,  but  not  himself; 
at  the  very  beginning  we  have  an  unknown  quantity  in  the 
racial  equation.  Neolithic  man  in  Egypt  was  short,  slight, 
dark,  with  a  rather  immature  skull;  local  variations  in  the 
neolithic  culture  make  it  doubtful  whether  we  are  to  expect 
the  same  physical  type  elsewhere.  Palaeolithic  man  seems  not 
to  have  formed  communities,  and  his  relics  are  scattered; 
neolithic  men  collected  in  villages  and  surrounded  them  with 
walls  for  defence.  They  possessed  a  sure  eye  for  location,  for 
with  them  begins  the  first  occupation  of  virtually  every  im¬ 
portant  city  of  the  Near  East.  Ashur,  Nineveh,  Arbela,  all 
show  their  traces. 

Flint  still  continued  to  be  the  chief  material  for  their  imple¬ 
ments,  and  now  and  then,  especially  at  Arbela,  we  find  the 
rare  polished  stones  so  familiar  in  western  Europe.  Peculiar 
to  the  Near  East  is  the  large  use  of  obsidian,  a  natural  glass 
of  volcanic  origin,  which  was  especially  adapted  to  small 
objects  and  made  excellent  arrow-heads.  Their  fireplaces  dot 
the  ruins.  Pottery  had  been  invented,  and  food  might  be 

1  Cf.  especially  Breasted,  Ancient  Times. 

2  Breasted,  Scientific  Monthly ,  1919,  289  ff. 


Fig.  7.  PALM  GARDEN  WITH  MUD  BRICK  WALL  BY  SIDE  OF  CANAL. 


Fig.  8.  AN  AFFLUENT  OF  THE  TIGRIS,  THE  DIYALA. 


MEN  OF  THE  EARTH  MOTHER 


9 


boiled  as  well  as  roasted;  liquids  might  be  carried.  No  longer 
was  man  dependent  on  the  chase  or  on  the  casual  discovery 
of  wild  plants;  the  ox,  the  sheep,  the  goat  had  been  domesti¬ 
cated;  split  wheat  and  six-sided  barley  were  grown  near  the 
village.  Skins  were  giving  place  to  wool  as  material  for 
clothing. 

As  agriculturists,  the  men  of  the  neolithic  age  had  reached 
a  definite  stage  of  psychical  development.  Their  welfare  cen¬ 
tred  about  the  planted  field  where  the  women  did  the  work,  and 
this  factor  became  especially  apparent  in  religion.  Primitive 
animism  still  exerted  its  malign  influence,  with  its  millions  of 
spirits,  all  evil  and  ready  to  pounce  upon  defenceless  humanity. 
But  there  had  been  an  advance.  Woman,  who  made  fertile 
the  fields  by  her  labour,  was  herself  the  best  example  of  fer¬ 
tility;  through  the  mysteries  of  her  physical  life  might  best  be 
propitiated  those  good  spirits  who  brought  her  labour  to 
fruition.  Thus  there  sprang  up  the  worship  of  the  earth 
mother,  the  goddess  of  fertility.  To  our  more  developed 
sensibilities,  there  was  much  in  her  worship  that  is  most  re¬ 
pulsive;  we  must  not  forget  that  it  meant  for  the  first  time 
the  recognition  of  the  divine  mystery  of  motherhood. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  hills  northeast  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  long 
straight  lines  as  if  drawn  by  a  ruler,  and  in  the  hot  valleys 
between,  there  had  evolved  a  higher  form  of  the  neolithic 
civilisation.  Its  centre  was  at  Susa,  and  the  marvellously  beau¬ 
tiful  decorations  of  its  painted  pottery  afford  some  idea  of  its 
high  culture.  Across  the  Persian  Gulf  was  an  outpost  of  this 
neolithic  culture  in  the  seashore  city  of  Eridu. 

The  neolithic  settlement  at  Eridu  comes  from  the  days  when 
Babylonia  was  not  yet  in  physical  existence,  when  men  were 
settling  at  the  mouths  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  and  along 
the  shores  of  the  sea  into  which  Babylonia  was  to  be  moulded. 
As  the  silt  brought  down  by  the  mighty  rivers  began  to  push 
out  into  the  Gulf,  say  some  five  thousand  years  before  our  era, 
mountaineers  from  the  Susa  region  commenced  their  descent 
into  the  alluvium.  In  most  respects  Babylonia  was  then  any¬ 
thing  but  an  attractive  land,  a  huge  bottom  with  lagoons  at 


10 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  river  mouths,  with  swamps  along  the  lower  course,  with 
pools  left  here  and  there  by  the  receding  flood,  with  stratified 
soils  ranging  from  gravel  and  sand  to  the  finest  silt.  Its  rivers 
had  already  reached  grade,  and  there  was  the  tendency  to 
meander,  to  cut  off  corners,  to  turn  into  a  new  channel  at  the 
slightest  obstacle  in  the  course,  to  overflow  the  surrounding 
country  with  every  flood. 

But  one  thing  might  be  said  in  favour  of  Babylonia,  though 
that  made  surpassing  appeal  to  ever-hungry  primitive  man. 
Its  type  soil  was  a  light  loam,  washed  down  from  the  mountains 
where  its  two  rivers  found  their  source,  and  rich  in  the  lime 
extracted  from  their  limestones.  The  special  plant  foods, 
nitrogen,  potash,  phosphorus,  were  there  in  unusually  large 
quantities.  The  rainfall,  rarely  over  eight  inches  per  annum, 
was  enough  to  prove  its  fertility  by  the  plants  which  sprang 
up  after  the  pouring  showers,  but  irrigation  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  bring  in  permanent  cultivation.  Water  was 
furnished  in  abundance  by  the  rivers,  the  Euphrates  in  par¬ 
ticular,  whose  lazily  moving  chocolate-coloured  stream  may  be 
induced  with  the  greatest  ease  to  spread  its  fertilising  solu¬ 
tion  of  silt  over  the  surrounding  fields.  With  irrigation,  the 
great  stretches  of  alkali  land  might  be  washed  out,  for  the 
soil  was  porous  and  easily  handled.  Babylonia  furnished  an 
ideal  outlet  for  mountaineers  who  had  already  outgrown  the 
narrow  confines  of  their  cramped  valleys. 

Far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  the  land  is  level,  the  sky-line  flat. 
The  one  element  of  beauty  is  the  palm,  which  forms  a  long 
fringe  along  the  rivers  and  canals  or  hides  the  village  with  its 
shapeless  blocks  of  mud  huts  and  its  gardens  surrounded  by 
mud  walls.  A  palm-grove  against  the  setting  sun  or  reflected 
in  the  sluggish  waters  does  make  an  appeal  to  the  aesthetic 
sense  of  the  traveller,  but  he  soon  tires  of  the  eternal  sameness 
of  the  fruit,  whose  cloying  sweetness  is  so  unhealthy  in  a  torrid 
clime.  Yret  he  should  not  forget  that  it  does  afford  much 
energy  in  small  bulk,  and  so  is  an  ideal  food  for  the  poor.  As 
time  went  on,  the  fields  of  barley,  millet,  and  wheat  produced 
great  patches  of  green  where  before  were  sun-baked  plains. 


Fig.  9.  PREHISTORIC  IDOL.  (Armenia.) 


MEN  OF  THE  EARTH  MOTHER 


11 


Babylonia  then  tends  to  monotony,  to  the  development  of 
a  certain  mediocrity  of  character.  As  a  natural  result,  its 
conquerors,  no  matter  how  energetic,  soon  fall  under  its  malign 
spell.  All  too  soon  they  become  true  Babylonians,  good 
business  men,  devoted  to  their  every-day  occupations,  highly 
religious,  unenterprising,  and  the  prey  of  each  successive  in¬ 
vader. 

As  one’s  caravan  marches  northward  from  Babylonia,  the 
blistering  heat  and  mirage-laden  air  of  the  never-ending  level 
give  way  to  the  rolling  prairie.  Only  along  the  Tigris  and  Eu¬ 
phrates  are  narrow  strips  of  bottom-land.  Back  a  mile  or 
so  from  the  streams  are  low  bluffs  of  loose  conglomerate  rest¬ 
ing  on  sandstone,  and  back  again  from  these  on  the  low  plateau 
between  the  rivers  stretch  the  prairies.  Although  the  soil 
is  residual  rather  than  alluvial,  it  is  scarcely  inferior  to  that 
of  Babylonia  for  fertility.  After  the  spring  rains,  the  country 
blossoms  like  the  rose.  Day  by  day  the  colour  changes  with 
the  flowers — one  day  red  with  huge  tulips,  another  blue,  another 
yellow,  and  the  air  at  times  is  almost  sickeningly  odorous. 
In  spite  of  all  this  beauty,  the  general  effect  is  that  of  desola¬ 
tion,  broken  only  by  the  solitary  Arab  camp  or  the  equally 
solitary  flock  of  sheep. 

At  first  sight,  one  is  persuaded  that  all  this  desolation  is  due 
to  modern  mismanagement,  for  such  fertile  soil  must  have 
been  cultivated  in  antiquity.  A  few  hours’  march  is  sufficient 
to  show  this  a  delusion.  Rarely,  indeed,  does  the  traveller 
behold  any  sign  of  earlier  occupation,  barely  a  dozen  sites  in 
all  the  long  stretch  of  the  middle  Tigris,  perhaps  a  few  more 
along  the  middle  Euphrates,  while  in  the  territory  away 
from  the  streams  they  are  practically  non-existent.  The 
reason  is  clear :  like  the  alluvium,  the  prairie  has  a  rainfall  too 
scanty  to  bring  the  crops  to  maturity;  unlike  the  alluvium,  its 
surface  lies  just  too  high  for  canals  to  be  drawn  from  the  deep- 
sunk  beds  of  the  boundary  rivers. 

Signs  of  occupation  are  detected  only  along  the  few  streams 
the  prairie  boasts.  Those  which  take  their  start  from  the 
Armenian  mountains  that  compose  the  northern  rim  succeed 


12 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


in  passing  south  for  a  certain  distance,  and  along  their  banks 
is  a  continuous  line  of  ruin  mounds.  Only  two,  the  Balih 
and  the  Habur,  finally  reach  the  Euphrates,  and  these  two 
connect  the  north  with  the  south  by  close-set  villages.  The 
others  are  absorbed  into  these  two,  are  swallowed  up  by  the 
'  hungry  earth,  or  are  evaporated  into  the  dry  air.  Typical 
is  the  fate  of  the  one  great  stream  bed  west  of  Ashur,  the  Tar- 
tara.  In  spring,  the  rains  of  the  Singara  mountains  fill  it  so 
full  that  it  cannot  be  forded,  and  it  has  cut  a  valley  from  five 
to  twenty  feet  deep  and  into  the  underlying  gypsum  and 
limestone.  By  April,  an  Assyrian  king  found  no  water  in  its 
bed  save  as  he  dug  wells  to  the  water-level  twenty-five  feet 
below. 

The  remainder  of  the  arid  country,  ever  growing  broader 
as  we  pass  to  the  south,  is  still  roamed  as  it  was  in  earlier  days 
by  wandering  and  more  than  half-savage  shepherds,  when  they 
are  not  forced  to  retreat  before  the  inroads  of  the  powerful 
tribes  of  north  central  Arabia,  for  the  Mesopotamian  prairie 
has  always  been  the  abode  of  the  wandering  Semitic  nomad  as 
was  our  own  of  the  American  Indian.  Without  adequate 
protection,  even  the  small  amount  of  cultivation  practicable 
has  not  always  been  attempted,  and  the  fertile  prairie  has  re¬ 
mained  desolate  throughout  the  ages  for  want  of  the  two  es¬ 
sentials:  water  and  a  strong  government. 

Trade  was  well  advanced  in  neolithic  times,  as  the  finds  of 
objects  from  distant  points  amply  show.  Already  the  great 
trade  route  of  the  ancient  Orient  was  being  traversed.  Start¬ 
ing  from  Egypt,  it  crossed  the  narrow  strip  of  desert  into  the 
Philistine  plain,  turned  inland  through  Hollow  Syria,  and  in 
north  Syria  sent  a  branch  northwest  into  Cilicia  and  by  the 
Cilician  Gates  to  the  plateau  of  Asia  Minor.  The  main  route 
met  the  Euphrates  and  then  divided.  The  shortest  line  was 
down  the  Euphrates,  but  much  of  it  ran  between  desert  and 
steppe,  and  it  was  always  in  danger  from  the  raiding  Arabs. 
Caravans  generally  preferred  to  march  due  east  along  the 
foot-hills  of  the  northern  rim  to  the  Tigris;  down-stream  the 
river  could  be  utilised  by  means  of  the  kalak,  the  floating 


Fig.  11.  ASHUR,  FIRST  ASSYRIAN  CAPITAL,  FROM  THE  NORTH. 

To  the  left  is  the  Tigris,  then  the  ruins  of  the  Ashur  temple,  the  temple  tower,  the  north 
wall.  In  the  middle  distance  are  the  city  walls,  in  the  far  distance  the  Ialman  Mountains. 


Fig.  12.  ARBELA,  HOME  OF  THE  PROPHETIC  GODDESS  ISHTAR. 


Fig.  13.  NINEVEH,  THE  LATE  ASSYRIAN  CAPITAL 


MEN  OF  THE  EARTH  MOTHER 


13 


platform  built  on  inflated  skins.  Its  terribly  swift  current  and 
hidden  obstacles  made  it  dangerous  for  all  but  the  professional 
boatman;  while  passage  up-stream  against  the  current  was  a 
simple  impossibility.  Merchants,  therefore,  regularly  pre¬ 
ferred  the  land. 

In  the  northeast  corner  of  the  Fertile  Crescent,  where  the 
route  turned  sharply  to  the  south  to  avoid  the  mountains, 
lay  the  Assyrian  Triangle,  between  the  Tigris,  the  Upper  Zab, 
and  the  hills.  The  greater  roll  to  the  land  indicated  its  near¬ 
ness  to  the  rough  country  which  had  run  well  into  it  spurs  of 
conglomerate  with  serpentine  veins.  Its  soil  was  as  good  as 
that  of  the  prairies,  and  a  greater  rainfall  and  numerous  streams 
made  its  complete  cultivation  possible.  Even  the  olive  might 
be  grown,  though  not  with  complete  success.  In  the  centre  of 
the  west  side  of  the  Triangle,  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Tigris, 
lay  its  chief  capital,  Nineveh. 

From  Nineveh  the  road  ran  across  the  Triangle  and  over  the 
Upper  Zab  to  another  important  centre,  Arbela,  in  the  midst 
of  a  broad  plain  at  the  base  of  the  eastern  mountains.  Skirt¬ 
ing  these,  it  forded  the  majority  of  the  Tigris  affluents  not  far 
from  where  they  leave  the  eastern  foot-hills.  It  was  a  route 
favoured  by  nature,  which  had  planted  at  intervals  of  easy 
marches  sites  for  villages  rejoicing  in  running  waters,  but  it 
was  exposed  to  the  raids  of  fierce  mountaineers,  and  the  south¬ 
ern  half  was  the  debatable  land,  always  in  dispute  between 
the  men  of  the  alluvium  and  the  men  of  Assyria.  ' 

A  shorter  branch  ran  direct  from  Nineveh  down  the  west 
bank  of  the  Tigris.  At  the  northern  exit  from  Mount  Abeh, 
the  only  hills  of  importance  which  it  must  cross,  a  tiny  pocket 
of  soil  is  commanded  by  a  low  bluff,  solid  sandstone  with  a 
capping  of  conglomerate,  which  rises  eighty-five  feet  above  the 
river.  Under  its  scarp  runs  the  Tigris,  always  an  impressive 
stream,  and  in  the  spring  floods  rising  twenty  feet  in  a  few  days 
until  it  forms  a  mile-wide  sea.  Its  swift  current  strikes  the 
wall  from  the  east,  and  the  rapids  thus  formed  force  a  back¬ 
water  under  the  steep  northern  slope. 

From  the  bluff  one  has  a  wide  view  in  fine  weather  even  to 


14 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  far-away  snow-capped  mountains  beyond  the  Assyrian 
Triangle;  the  border  ranges  of  Persia  are  in  sight;  just  outside 
the  walls  one  may  look  down  into  Babylonia.  But  the  view 
is  attractive  only  in  its  sweep.  When  cultivated,  the  bottom-  . 
lands  are  a  thread  of  green  with  a  still  more  narrow  thread  of 
tamarisk-bushes  by  the  river;  but  the  great  plains  to  the  east 
lose  their  green  before  the  spring  rains  have  more  than  ceased, 
the  near-by  hills  are  rough  and  barren,  the  prevailing  colour 
is  a  dirty  grayish  brown.  Winter  is  short  but  rather  sharp; 
once  in  a  generation  the  ground  is  covered  with  snow,  the 
temperature  sinks  almost  to  zero,  and  remains  a  whole  day 
below  the  freezing7point.  Spring  and  autumn  are  also  short, 
and  for  half  the  year  summer  reigns.  In  the  shade  the  tem¬ 
perature  may  reach  a  hundred  and  fifteen.  If  the  wind  is  still, 
the  heat  is  unbearable;  if  it  blows,  the  earth  dissolves  into  dust 
and  life  becomes  miserable.  No  longer  does  one  hear  the 
whirr  of  the  red-legged  partridge  or  the  song  of  the  lark  on 
the  neighbouring  hills. 

The  men  of  Susa  were  not  long  content  with  the  swampy, 
monotonous  alluvium.  Hillmen  as  they  were,  they  felt  the 
same  attraction  which  thrills  the  present-day  traveller  when  he 
leaves  the  baking  alluvium  for  the  grassy  open  prairies.  So 
the  neolithic  inhabitants  of  Ashur,  Nineveh,  and  Arbela  were 
dispossessed  or  made  subject,  and  the  northwest  corner  of  the 
Fertile  Crescent  became  an  integral  part  of  the  territory  under 
the  sway  of  the  Susa  culture. 

For  the  culture  found  in  Ashur  is  essentially  the  same  as 
that  of  Babylonia  or  Elam,  and  everywhere  the  aristocracy 
have  the  same  physical  appearance.  The  men  are  of  medium 
height  and  build,  perhaps  a  trifle  stocky.  Their  heads  and 
faces  are  long,  sometimes  reaching  an  extreme,  their  fore¬ 
heads  are  retreating,  their  cheeks  are  full,  their  eyebrows  are 
bowed,  their  eyes  are  large,  their  nose  is  generous  and  slightly 
hooked  though  broad  at  the  base,  their  lips  are  thin,  their 
mouth  is  small,  their  chin  is  double.  Their  neck  is  nearly  ab¬ 
sent,  for  the  head  is  set  almost  directly  on  the  broad  shoul¬ 
ders;  the  lower  body  is  well  though  not  over  developed. 


Fig.  14.  HEAD  OF  NOBLE  LADY  FROM  ASHUR.  (Restored.) 


Fig.  15.  POTTERY  AND  OTHER  SMALL  OBJECTS  FROM  GRAVE 

(Early  Ashur.) 


MEN  OF  THE  EARTH  MOTHER 


15 


These  peculiarities  are  clearly  exposed  by  the  almost  univer¬ 
sal  habit  of  shaving  the  face  and  head.  Like  the  men  are  the 
women,  far  from  slim,  but  not  quite  too  robust  to  pass  our 
extreme  limit  for  beauty.  In  general,  the  women  of  the 
statues  have  a  higher  forehead  than  the  men.  The  striking 
difference  in  representation  must  indicate  a  different  conven¬ 
tion  of  feminine  beauty;  there  would  have  been  few  women 
among  the  invaders,  and  when  their  chiefs  married  the  aris¬ 
tocratic  ladies  of  the  older  race,  it  was  their  appearance  which 
convention  considered  the  norm  of  female  beauty. 

Treatment  of  the  hair  is  a  striking  feature.  The  men  al¬ 
most  without  exception  shaved  the  face  and  head  completely. 
This  has  been  considered  proof  that  we  have  here  a  race  with 
little  bodily  hair,  but  the  earliest  representations  seem  to  be 
those  where  the  hair  is  simply  combed  back  from  the  forehead 
and  knotted  at  the  nape  of  the  neck,  and  other  examples  show 
bald-headed  men  with  all  but  the  chin-beard  shaved.  Women 
parted  their  hair*  in  the  middle  and  combed  it  back  with  a 
rippling  effect,  catching  it  up  in  a  net  at  the  back  of  the  neck. 
A  bandeau  was  worn  over  the  brow  or  a  close  cap  covered  the 
entire  head.  Ladies  of  the  higher  class  wore  a  turban  elabo¬ 
rately  intertwined  from  a  single  long  strip  of  cloth. 

Before  the  gods  in  the  earliest  times,  men  appeared  in 
sacrificial  nudity.  By  the  date  when  the  Ashur  statuettes 
were  carved,  the  men  wore  in  the  god’s  presence  a  simple  skirt, 
while  the  women  added  an  upper  garment  which  left  the  right 
shoulder  and  breast  exposed.  Sometimes  this  dress  was 
plain,  more  commonly  it  consisted  of  rows  of  ruffles  sewed 
upon  a  lining;  in  the  case  of  the  women,  this  was  shaped  under 
the  right  arm  and  had  a  binding.  The  fair  sex  was  much 
decorated  with  bead  necklaces,  bracelets,  and  armlets,  but 
their  simpler  husbands  were  adorned  neither  with  such  effem¬ 
inate  ornament  nor  with  more  martial  weapons. 

The  men  who  introduced  this  civilisation  spoke  the  Shu- 
merian  language,  so  called  from  Shumer,  or  south  Babylonia. 
It  belonged  to  the  agglutinative  group,  and  is  roughly  paral¬ 
leled  by  such  modern  languages  as  Turkish,  with  which  some 


16 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


scholars  find  connections  in  vocabulary  and  grammar.  Before 
entering  Babylonia,  the  Shumerians  had  invented  a  system 
of  writing.  Originally  it  was  pictographic,  and  in  the  last 
Assyrian  century  scholars  still  preserved  the  memory  of  the 
older  signs.  Our  earliest  written  records,  from  the  middle  of 
the  fourth  millennium,  show  that  the  meaning  of  these  signs 
had  been  completely  lost.  A  considerable  literature  had 
already  sprung  up  in  Babylonia;  not  only  royal  dedications 
and  business  documents,  but  more  ambitious  compositions, 
religious  hymns  and  incantations,  even  legends  of  some  length. 
Nothing  of  this  sort  has  been  discovered  at  Ashur. 

That  Shumerian  was,  however,  actually  the  spoken  lan¬ 
guage  of  the  land  is  proved  by  such  Shumerian  names  as  that 
of  E-harsaggal-kurkurra,  Ashur’s  own  temple  in  his  native 
city,  with  the  good  Shumerian  meaning  of  “  House  of  the  great 
exalted  mountain  of  the  lands,”  or  such  as  E-mishmish  and 
E-gashan-kalama,  the  shrines  of  the  mother  goddess  at  Nine¬ 
veh  and  Arbela  respectively.  Doubtless,  Assyria  was  con¬ 
nected  as  closely  with  Babylonia  politically  as  it  was  cul¬ 
turally,  but  we  know  too  little  of  its  history  in  this  period 
to  say  to  which  of  the  warring  city-states  of  the  alluvium  it 
belonged.  It  is  not  certain  whether  we  may  attribute  to 
this  period  our  earliest  inscription,  the  dedication  of  a  certain 
Ititi  in  the  temple  of  the  mother  goddess  at  Ashur. 

Life  in  Ashur  was  of  the  simplest.  The  house  of  a  typical 
citizen  would  consist  of  one  or  two  large  rooms  and  several 
of  smaller  extent,  all  of  mud  brick,  and  around  a  small  court. 
Their  floors  would  be  likewise  of  adobe.  Possibly  a  raised 
seat  might  extend  along  the  wall ;  more  likely  the  visitor  would 
squat  on  the  reed  mats.  Virtually  all  the  furniture,  if  we 
may  employ  such  a  word,  was  of  clay.  Survivals  of  the 
neolithic  red  and  black  geometric  painted  pottery  are  found 
at  first,  but  the  typical  pottery  is  adorned  with  designs  added 
in  relief  or  by  geometric  incisions,  often  made  with  a  comb. 
Virtually  every  form  is  represented  from  the  huge  pithoi  used 
to  collect  rain-water,  the  pitcher,  the  bowl,  to  the  saucer. 
Of  clay,  too,  was  beaten  out  the  fireplace  or  the  charcoal  brazier 


Fig.  16.  GYPSUM  STATUE  OF  A  Fig.  17.  COPPER  STATUETTE  OF  Fig.  18.  GYPSUM  STATUE  OF 

NOBLE.  (Ashur.)  A  LADY.  (Ashur.)  LADY.  (Ashur.) 


MEN  OF  THE  EARTH  MOTHER 


17 


or  the  jar  used  as  fireless  cooker.  Woman’s  chief  adornment, 
beads,  were  of  clay  dipped  in  a  glazing  solution  which  made 
them  almost  glass  in  appearance. 

Although  the  foundation  of  all  life  in  Ashur  was  agricul¬ 
tural,  we  have  but  a  single  indication  of  it,  a  copper  sickle, 
and  that  was  quite  appropriately  dedicated  in  the  temple 


of  the  goddess  of  fertility.  It  is  no  mere  accident  that  it  is 
her  temple  which  is  the  one  building  that  is  preserved  from 
such  early  times,  that  it  is  her  cult  which  is  the  best-known 
fact  of  the  period. 

When  a  citizen  would  worship  his  goddess,  he  must  dress 
accordingly.  Ceremonial  nudity  had  given  place  to  a  skirt 
for  men,  and  women  added  the  upper  garment  which  left  one 
shoulder  and  breast  exposed.  The  worshipper  took  his  goat 


18 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


or  sheep  in  his  left  arm,  raised  his  right  in  adoration,  and 
was  conducted  by  priests  clad  in  the  robes  of  minor  divini¬ 
ties.  From  the  street  he  passed  through  the  open  gateway 
with  its  guards  lounging  upon  the  clay  benches  of  the  guard- 
room,  marched  down  a  long  narrow  passage,  and  across  the 
courtyard  saw  the  plain  adobe  front  of  the  temple,  with  its 


Fig.  19.  SHRINE  OF  ISHTAR  TEMPLE  AT  ASHUR  (EARLY  PERIOD). 


flat  roof  of  beams  and  pressed  clay.  Within  its  door,  he  turned 
to  his  left  and  looked  down  the  room  to  the  shrine  at  the  far 
end.  On  a  low  bank  around  the  wall  stood  or  sat  statuettes 
of  the  worshippers,  but  no  inscription  gave  their  names. 
Directly  before  him  was  a  square  altar  of  clay  with  hollowed 
top  on  which  his  animal  was  sacrificed  and  a  smaller  square 
pan  of  terra-cotta  to  catch  the  blood.  Beyond  was  a  large 
jar  to  catch  the  rain-water,  and  smaller  vessels  with  which  to 
dip  it. 

An  attendant  next  took  from  the  side-wall  one  of  several 
three-foot  models  of  houses.  Strange  to  say,  the  houses  repre- 


\Vr 


Fig.  20.  EARLIEST  TEMPLE  OF  THE  MOTHER  GODDESS  AT  ASH  UR. 


MEN  OF  THE  EARTH  MOTHER 


19 


sented  were  of  wood;  clearly  these  are  the  houses  in  which 
the  Shumerians  lived  before  they  left  the  mountains.  The 
structures  are  two-storied,  a  front  and  a  back  room  on  the 
first  floor,  one  room  opening  out  on  the  flat  roof  for  the  upper. 
Windows  are  high  and  narrow,  but  above  them  is  a  second  tier 
of  smaller  openings,  triangular  or  arched.  Sashes  surround 


Fig.  21.  IVORY  FIGURE  FROM  ASHUR. 


each  window,  and  studding-beams  on  the  outside  mark  the 
separation  of  the  rooms.  All  these  are  pitted  by  dots.  At 
the  top  of  the  houses  are  snakes,  lions,  or  doves,  the  creatures 
sacred  to  the  mother  goddess.  On  these  the  worshipper  set 
his  offerings:  on  the  topmost  story  the  deity’s  portion  of  the 
victim,  placed  on  flat  round  cakes,  on  the  lower  a  tall  holder 
in  which  were  flowers  or  branches  with  fruit  upon  which  the 
worshipper  poured  out  water  in  sympathetic  magic,  with  the 
hope  that  thus  the  deity  would  grant  the  fruit-producing  rains. 

Still  farther  to  the  front  was  a  T-shaped  bank  of  clay,  in 
whose  corners  were  large  jars,  and  a  saucer  filled  with  beads 


20 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


was  near  by.  Here,  too,  were  other  stands  for  incense,  or  for 
other  plants. 

In  a  niche  at  the  end  of  the  room,  perhaps  closed  by  a  veil 
or  some  such  mat  of  woven  reeds  as  was  actually  found  not 
far  off,  and  elevated  half  a  man’s  height  above  the  floor,  was 
the  image  of  the  goddess.  We  may  guess  her  appearance  only 
from  the  extraordinarily  crude  clay  images  which  the  priests 
sold  for  a  trifle  to  the  faithful.  Generally  she  is  naked  and 
her  maternal  features  are  accentuated,  her  hands  hold  her 
breasts,  and  she  is  standing.  Occasionally  she  is  seated ;  more 
rarely  she  is  clothed.  The  more  gorgeous  accessories  are 
missing. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SOWN 

Life  in  Ashur,  to  judge  from  the  absence  of  warlike  finds, 
was  peaceful.  Suddenly  the  city  was  overwhelmed.  Pal¬ 
ace  and  temple  alike  were  plundered,  the  statues  were  shat¬ 
tered,  the  buildings  were  committed  to  the  flames,  the  settle¬ 
ment  was  covered  with  a  deep  layer  of  ashes  and  half-burnt 
debris.  A  similar  catastrophe  overwhelmed  Shuruppak,  the 
oldest  city  in  Babylonia.  The  Shumerian  civilisation  had 
come  to  an  end. 

No  other  explanation  seems  possible;  we  must  connect 
this  with  the  inroad  of  the  Semitic  barbarians.  Ashur  was 
indeed  resettled,  but  the  scanty  traces  of  the  walls  at  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  the  mother  goddess,  adobe  on  a  base  of  small  stones, 
the  miserable  character  of  the  few  objects  scattered  through 
this  stratum,  indicate  a  period  of  deepest  decadence.  Later 
tradition  related  that  the  first  city  wall  had  been  erected  by 
a  certain  Kikia,  whose  name  has  been  thought  Asianic;  possi¬ 
bly  the  small  towers  with  rough  stone  base  and  small  burnt 
bricks  for  the  superstructure  may  be  ascribed  to  him,  for  they 
were  erected  before  the  foundation  of  the  Ashur  temple. 
Possible  also  is  the  attribution  to  the  end  of  this  period  of  the 
construction  of  the  first  temple  to  Ashur  by  another  man  whose 
name  sounds  Asianic,  Ushpia,  for  above  the  tower  ruins  are 
a  few  adobe  fragments. 

Gradually  the  Semites  learned  their  lesson  from  the  Shu- 
merians  they  had  subdued.  For  the  open  tribal  warfare, 
they  substituted  the  close,  heavy-armed  phalanx  of  their  pred¬ 
ecessors.  The  loose  tribal  organisation  where  the  chief  had 
little  power  passed  rapidly  through  the  city-state  stage  into 
the  loosely  compacted  empire.  In  the  Shumerian  mind  the 
real  ruler  of  his  city-state  was  its  chief  god,  and  the  king  was 
merely  his  vicegerent  on  earth;  the  more  practical  Semite 

21 


22 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


called  himself  a  god,  and  thus  brought  into  his  own  person 
the  prestige  which  the  Shumerian  had  shared  with  his  deity. 
By  the  Shumerian  theory,  title  to  the  land  was  vested  in  the 
god,  and  rent  was  paid  instead  of  taxes;  with  the  Semites  we 
find  our  first  examples  of  land  held  in  fee  simple. 

Shumerian  culture  was  taken  over  en  bloc,  Shumerian  was 
still  the  language  of  the  educated,  royal  inscriptions  and 
business  documents  were  in  most  cases  written  in  it.  Semitic 
Akkadian  was  fitted  to  the  cuneiform  signs;  the  fit  was  not  a 
close  one,  for  certain  of  the  Semitic  sounds  had  been  unknown 
to  the  older  language. 

Greatest  of  all  the  adjustments  which  the  Semite  was  called 
upon  to  make  was  that  in  the  field  of  religion.  Chief  of 
the  deities  was  the  mother  goddess  from  whom  came  the 
instinct  of  life,  whether  manifested  in  grain,  in  animal,  or  in 
man  himself.  Another  goddess  ruled  the  shadowy  underworld. 
Below  these  goddesses  and  their  less-important  male  counter¬ 
parts  were  the  evil  spirits,  kept  from  injury  to  weak  man  only 
through  incantations,  the  property  of  the  magicians  and  con¬ 
jurers.  This  was  their  practical  religion,  tempered  only  by 
magic  and  the  hope  of  the  earth  mother. 

Practical  as  ever,  the  Semite  admitted  himself  a  stranger 
in  a  strange  land.  He  admitted  the  necessity  of  conciliating 
the  deities  of  his  new  home,  especially  those  who  were  guard¬ 
ians  of  the  soil  from  which  he  must  now  gain  his  livelihood. 
In  Arabia  he  had  possessed  no  regular  priesthood,  so  he  took 
over  the  magicians  and  the  conjurers.  He  had  no  temple  and 
he  made  himself  at  home  in  the  squares  of  mud  brick  with 
their  steeple-like  temple  towers,  memorials  of  the  days  when 
Shumerian  gods  yet  dwelt  on  mountain  peaks.  His  ritual  was 
taken  bodily  from  the  older  cult,  with  its  ceremonies  of  cleans¬ 
ing  and  purification.  Shumerian  became  his  sacred  language, 
whose  intricacies  he  learned  by  means  of  vocabulary  and 
phrase-book;  he  was  the  first  inventor  of  interlinear  “trots”; 
his  own  religious  compositions  were  modelled  on  those  in  the 
sacred  tongue.  In  seeming,  then,  the  cult  was  completely 
absorbed. 


Fig.  22.  CLAY  MODEL  OF  HOUSE  Fig.  23.  MODEL  OF  CHARIOT.  (Ashur  ) 

USED  IN  ISHTAR  CULT. 

(Ashur.) 


4 


Fig.  24.  METAL  MOULD.  (Ashur.) 


THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SOWN 


23 


In  the  ultimate  analysis,  things  were,  after  all,  not  quite 
the  same.  The  mother  goddess  was  doubtless  needed  to  fur¬ 
nish  fertility  for  the  soil,  but  she  was  identified  with  the  Semitic 
goddess  Ishtar.  Nergal,  the  Arab  sun-god  in  his  more  ma¬ 
leficent  aspect,  descended  to  the  land  of  the  dead  and  forced 
the  unwilling  Eresh-kigal  to  be  his  wife,  and  a  subordinate,  as 
a  good  Semitic  wife  should  be.  Other  deities  in  the  same  fash¬ 
ion  gradually  lost  their  predominant  position  or  were  identified 
with  the  desert  gods,  some  manifestation  of  sun,  moon,  or 
elements.  Their  names  were  substituted  for  those  used  by 
the  Shumerians,  their  functions  became  increasingly  Semitic, 
a  new  hierarchy  under  the  control  of  the  king-god  demoted 
the  magicians  and  conjurers  to  a  lower  rank,  the  temples  be¬ 
came  adjuncts  of  the  palaces.  Shumerian  began  to  drop  out 
of  general  use  and  became  a  dead  language,  used  only  in  the 
ritual. 

What  the  Semites  could  accomplish  was  indicated  by 
Sargon  of  Agade  and  his  successors.  For  the  space  of  a  cen¬ 
tury,  there  was  a  perfect  blaze  of  civilisation,  when  the  first 
great  Semitic  dynasty  of  Asia  forced  the  whole  eastern  half 
of  the  Fertile  Crescent,  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean,  to  recognise  one  supreme  ruler.1 

Assyria  was  within  the  empire,  but  Assyrian  culture  lagged 
far  behind.  Nevertheless,  this  was  the  time  when  Assyrian 
character  was  being  formed.  When  we  turn  from  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  to  the  Assyrian  records,  we  are  at  once  conscious  of  a 
new  atmosphere.  We  pass  from  the  presence  of  mediocrities 
into  a  group  made  up  of  individuals.  As  individuals,  they 
may  be  far  from  likable,  but  we  never  fail  to  realise  that  they 
actually  lived  and  were  vital  forces  in  their  world.  Their 
literature  may  lack  in  breadth,  it  gains  in  vividness.  The 
monotony  of  Babylonian  art  merges  into  the  splendid  Assyr¬ 
ian  bas-reliefs  with  their  feeling  for  nature.  Although  their 
home  country  was  rougher  and  more  diversified  and  the  natu¬ 
ral  obstacles  to  union  correspondingly  greater,  there  first  ap¬ 
peared  here  the  beginnings  of  organised  empire,  where  foreign 
1  For  detailed  history  of  early  Babylonia,  cf.  AJSL..  XXXIII.  283  £f- 


24 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


lands  were  not  merely  subdued  but  were  reduced  to  the  form 
of  provinces,  where  deportation  of  captives  resulted  in  an  as¬ 
similation  not  so  different  from  that  resulting  from  the  Amer¬ 
ican  “  melting-pot.”  This,  too,  is  contrary  to  what  physical 
environment  would  lead  us  to  expect.  Earlier  environment, 
conditions  beyond  our  ken,  must  have  played  their  part  in 
forming  the  Assyrian  people. 

The  low  bluff  at  Ashur,  in  the  hands  of  the  right  people, 
might  become  the  strategic  point  on  the  most  important  route 
of  the  civilised  world.  Its  situation  was  that  of  Rome  in  even 
stronger  form,  and  the  Semitic  characteristics  already  ma¬ 
tured  in  the  desert  were  hammered  into  national  features  in 
this  formative  period.  Open  to  easy  attack  on  all  sides,  it 
was  a  position  to  be  held  only  by  constant  warfare.  If  it 
was  a  post  of  danger,  it  was  also  a  post  of  opportunity.  The 
desert  which  came  to  be  a  terror  to  its  citizens  was  a  still 
greater  terror  to  the  merchants.  A  narrow  bridge-head  be¬ 
tween  Tigris  and  desert,  armies  thundered  back  and  forth 
along  the  trace;  toll-giving  caravans  of  necessity,  and  still  more 
often,  must  pass  under  its  walls.  Like  Rome  once  more,  it 
might  block  to  its  own  advantage  the  march  of  caravans  and 
armies,  but  only  by  constant  preparedness  for  war.  Through 
such  necessity  of  being  always  on  the  alert,  the  natural  war¬ 
likeness  of  the  Semite  was  not  lost,  as  so  generally  happened 
when  the  nomad  became  sedentary;  rather  it  was  heightened 
to  an  extreme  which  sometimes  became  unjustified  delight  in 
human  suffering. 

After  an  era  of  decline,  Assyria  again  fell  under  the  sway  of 
Babylonia  when  Shumerian  reaction  was  represented  in  the 
dynasty  of  Ur  (2431-2361).  Its  greatest  king,  Dungi,  re¬ 
ports  the  destruction  of  Urb ilium  or  Arbela  in  2409,  and  his 
son  Bur  Sin  must  again  destroy  it  six  years  later.  His  mighty 
sukallu,  Arad  Nannar,  power  behind  the  throne,  was  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Urbillum,1  among  other  cities.  Ashur,  too,  was  under 
Bur  Sin’s  control,  for  he  promoted  a  certain  Zariku  from  the 
governorship  of  Susa  to  that  of  the  Assyrian  city.  As  gover- 

1  Cf.  AJSL.,  XXXV,  65  ff. 


Figs.  25-28.  CLAY  MODELS  OF  1SHTAK  USED  IN  THE  CULT.  (Asbur.) 


THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SOWN 


25 


nor  of  Ashur,  he  built  the  temple  of  the  “  Palace  Lady/’  the 
mother  goddess,  for  the  life  of  his  master  Bur  Sin.  The 
Babylonian  records  of  Bur  Sin  are  in  Shumerian;  curiously 
enough,  the  Ashur  dedication  is  in  Semitic. 

A  huge  mound  had  now  arisen  from  the  ruins  of  the  older 
temple  structure,  and  on  its  summit  was  erected  the  new  build¬ 
ing  of  five  rooms,  isolated  on  every  side.  Again  the  walls 
were  without  stone  foundations,  and  the  ground  plan  of  the 
chief  hall  was  the  same  as  that  used  five  centuries  before. 
From  the  now  low-lying  courtyard  rose  broad  steps  between 
jutting  towers.  Ashes  from  the  sacrifices  were  used  to  fill 
up  the  court,  and  thus  preserved  for  us  precious  relics. 

For  the  first  time  we  find  in  Zariku’s  inscription  the  city 
called  Ashir,  and  before  it  is  placed  the  sign  of  divinity.  Im¬ 
ages  of  Ashir,  to  use  the  earlier  form  of  Ashur’ s  name,  have 
also  been  found  in  this  stratum.  He  is  here  double-headed, 
each  head  with  the  turban  and  long  beard.  He  is  seated,  and 
carries  the  sacred  boomerang.  But  he  is  still  the  interloper; 
four  well-built  temples  of  the  mother  goddess  had  been  con¬ 
structed,  and  Ashur  was  still  to  have  an  adequate  house. 

Changes  had  taken  place  in  the  fashions.  Long-bearded 
males  with  turbans  were  now  as  common  as  those  with  hair 
entirely  shaved  and  bareheaded.  Men  ordinarily  dressed  in 
a  long  fringed  robe  which  descended  to  the  knees  and  left 
one  shoulder  uncovered;  women  differed  only  in  that  their 
garments  reached  the  ankles.  They  were  buried  in  covered 
vases,  if  children;  if  adults,  in  the  earth  direct.  Warriors  were 
accompanied  to  the  after -world  by  models  of  their  chariots 
and  by  their  bronze-shod  and  bronze-pointed  spears,  by  bronze 
battle-axes  and  knives. 

Aside  from  the  inscription  of  Zariku,  our  only  writing  oc¬ 
curs  on  the  impressions  of  seals  on  the  lumps  of  clay  which 
closed  the  mouths  of  jars.  Their  design  is  the  one  common 
to  the  Ur  period,  the  moon-god  Nannar  of  Ur  seated  on  his 
throne  while  a  minor  deity  introduces  the  worshipper.  One 
bears  the  name  of  Izi  Dagan,  governor  of  Mari  on  the  middle 
Euphrates  and  servant  of  Bar  Dagan.  Now,  strangely  enough, 


26 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


a  letter  has  been  found  in  Babylonia  which  Iadiri,  the  son  of 
Izi  Dagan,  wrote  in  company  with  six  men  of  Hanat,  the  island 
town  a  little  down  the  river,  to  the  aklu  official  of  Amurru: 
“In  trust  of  those  fugitives  who  have  returned  from  Mari, 
they  have  destroyed  the  shrine  of  Marduk  who  loves  you.”  1 

Not  long  after,  the  west  Semites  of  Mari  put  an  end  to  the 
dynasty  of  Ur,  and  Ishbi-urra  founded  the  dynasty  of  Nisin 
(2361) ;  perhaps  Ashur  was  included  at  first  in  their  kingdom. 
A  rival  dynasty  secured  north  Babylonia  in  2225,  and  Sumu- 
abu  raised  Babylon  from  obscurity.  During  the  wars  of  the 
period,  Ashur  appears  to  have  become  independent.  Very 
appropriately,  Puzur  Ashir  I  heads  the  list,  for  in  his  name  is 
found  the  name  of  Ashur  in  its  earlier  form.  His  son  Shalim- 
ahum  wrote  an  inscription,  and  his  son  in  turn,  Ilu-shuma, 
made  an  unsuccessful  foray  into  Babylonia;  as  his  opponent 
was  Sumu-abu  of  Babylon,  we  may  date  Ilu-shuma  not  far 
from  2225. 

Ilu-shuma  is  better  known  for  his  rebuilding  of  the  temple 
of  the  mother  goddess,  Ishtar  the  Assyrian,  as  she  was  now 
regularly  called.  The  foundations  seem  to  have  been  laid 
with  stone,  and  the  main  hall  was  more  than  a  hundred  feet 
long,  three  times  that  of  the  earliest  structure.  Erishum  is 
said  to  have  been  contemporary  with  Sumu-la-ilu  (2211-2175), 
the  next  king  of  Babylon.  He  tells  us  how  he  restored  the 
temple  of  Ashur,  and  his  bricks  still  prove  his  work  on  the  solid 
stone  walls,  pavement,  and  asphalted  drains  and  canals.  It 
was  Erishum,  too,  who  first  built  at  the  mushlal,  the  great 
buttress  north  of  the  Ashur  temple,  finding  his  base  in  the 
gray-green  sandstone  half-way  down  the  hill  below  the  con¬ 
glomerate  level.  He  was  also  the  founder  of  the  temple  of 
Adad,  the  weather-god  and  the  most  characteristic  west 
Semitic  deity.  Ikunum  erected  the  temple  of  the  underworld 
goddess  Eresh-kigal  and  rebuilt  the  city  wall,  where  his  towers 
and  stone  bases,  his  adobe  structure,  and  his  mud  mortar 
and  layers  of  reeds  still  remain. 

Sargon  of  Agade,  the  renowned  hero,  was  imitated  by  the 

1  CT.,  IV,  1;  Ungnad,  OLZ.,  XVII,  343. 


Fig.  29.  THE  EUPHRATES,  A  LAZILY  MOVING,  CHOCOLATE-COLO URED 

STREAM  IN  THE  ALLUVIUM. 


Fig.  30.  THE  Ml  DOLL  TIGRIS  AT  AMED1. 


THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SOWN 


27 


Assyrian  Sharrukin,  both  in  his  name  and  in  his  insistence 
that  his  subjects  should  place  the  sign  of  divinity  before  it. 
A  tablet  sealed  with  his  seal  has  been  found  among  the  tablets 
from  Cappadocia,  and  this  raises  the  most  difficult  question  of 
Assyrian  relationship. 

North  from  Mount  Argseus,  the  highest  summit  of  Asia 
Minor,  extends  a  fertile  plain.  At  its  upper  end  lay  the  city 
of  Ganish,  from  whose  ruined  mound  have  come  the  Cappa¬ 
docian  tablets  so  called.  Already  there  was  a  colony  of  Sem¬ 
ites  at  this  spot  by  the  beginning  of  the  third  millennium,  for 
Sargon  of  Agade  was  invited  to  assist  its  citizens,  since,  as 
they  confessed,  they  were  not  men  of  war.  They  were  writing 
letters  and  making  business  agreements  in  the  days  of  the  Ur 
dynasty,  for  one  of  their  tablets  is  sealed  with  the  cylinder  of 
a  servant  of  Ibi-Sin,  the  last  king  of  that  family  (2386-2361). 
They  use  Semitic,  but  it  is  a  distinct  dialect,  with  analogies 
to  the  Assyrian.  Their  names  are  sometimes  Asianic,  there 
is  reference  to  their  neighbours  the  Hittites,  Hittite  picto- 
graphs  appear  on  their  seals,  some  of  the  Semites  bear  west 
Semitic  names.  But  the  commonest  single  element  is  that 
of  the  god  Ashir  or  Ashur  as  he  is  indifferently  called;  the 
proportion  of  names  in  the  lists  which  have  the  Ashur  element 
is  amazing,  and  we  even  have  Mannu-ki  Ashur,  “Who  is  like 
the  god  Ashur?”  Some  of  these  business  men  are  called 
Shalim-ahum  or  Erishum,  as  the  contemporary  rulers  at  Ashur 
itself,  or  the  later  king  Ashur-rabi  is  anticipated,  in  fact  a 
majority  belong  with  Assyrian  personal  names.  They  used 
the  eponym  to  date  the  year  before  the  Assyrians  themselves, 
and  their  months  were  those  employed  by  the  Assyrians  be¬ 
fore  they  were  led  to  substitute  the  ones  from  Babylonia  which 
ultimately  conquered  western  Asia.  Connection  with  Ashur 
and  the  Assyrians  there  must  have  been,  whether  as  a  trading 
colony  from  Ashur  or  whether  they  and  the  Assyrians  had 
separated  before  the  Assyrians  reached  Ashur.1 

After  Puzur  Ashir  II  and  Ahi  Ashir,  the  city  of  Ashur  fell 

1  For  summary  of  the  present  situation  as  regards  the  question  of  the  Cappa¬ 
docian  tablets,  cf.  G.  Contenau,  Trente  Tablettes  Cajppadodennes,  1919. 


28 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


under  the  sway  of  Rim  Sin  (2154-2093),  the  well-known  ruler 
of  Elam,  who  has  gained  an  unearned  notoriety  by  the  com¬ 
mon  identification  with  the  Arioch  of  Genesis.  When  Rim 
Sin  fell  before  the  lawgiver  Hammurabi  (2124-2081),  a  second 
Erishum  was  made  governor  in  Ashur.  In  the  preface  to  his 
famous  code  of  laws,  Hammurabi  relates  how  he  returned  to 
that  city  its  grace-giving  lamassu;  this  is  the  term  applied  to 
the  human-headed  bulls  which  guarded  the  palace  gates,  and 
would  seem  to  connect  Ashur  with  the  bull-worship.  He  like¬ 
wise  informs  us  that  he  made  the  face  of  Ishtar  to  shine  in 
E-mishmish  of  Nineveh. 

Under  the  reign  of  Hammurabi’s  incapable  son,  Samsu-iluna, 
south  Babylonia  was  lost  to  the  so-called  Second  Dynasty 
of  Babylon,  which  henceforth,  weak  as  it  was,  was  accepted 
as  the  chief  power  of  the  alluvium.  The  empire  built  up  by 
Hammurabi  rapidly  disintegrated  in  the  incapable  hands  of 
his  descendants,  Ashur  slipped  away,  but  later  tradition  left 
the  period  a  blank  so  far  as  names  of  rulers  were  concerned. 

In  1926  the  first  dynasty  of  Babylon  glimmered  out,  and 
Marduk,  chief  god  of  Babylon,  and  his  consort  Sarpanitum 
went  into  captivity  to  Hanat,  on  the  middle  Euphrates.  Sham- 
shi  Adad  I  seems  to  have  been  the  man  who  brought  the  end. 
He  calls  himself  “King  of  the  Universe,”  an  old  title  formerly 
connected  with  the  extreme  north  of  Babylonia,  and  what  is 
the  territory  to  which  he  wishes  it  to  be  specifically  applied  is 
made  clear  by  his  next  claim,  “who  devotes  his  energies  to 
the  land  between  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.”  He  received 
tribute  from  the  kings  of  the  Tukrish  and  from  the  king  of  the 
upper  land,  and  he  set  up  a  memorial  tablet  in  the  city  of  Laban 
by  the  shore  of  the  great  sea.  A  ruler  who  controlled  the 
Fertile  Crescent  from  Babylon  to  the  Lebanon  and  the  Medi¬ 
terranean  enjoyed  a  mighty  empire,  but  it  was  not  Assyrian. 
His  father,  Igurkapkapu,  is  not  counted  in  the  Assyrian  lists, 
and  he  himself  does  not  take  his  royal  title  from  Ashur.  A 
mighty  empire  of  which  we  have  only  glimpses  elsewhere  is 
indicated. 

In  these  days  of  the  high  cost  of  living,  it  is  consoling  to 

y 


Fig.  31.  SNOW-CLAD  SUMMIT  OF  ARGJ1US. 


4 


THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SOWN 


29 


learn  that  it  was  a  problem  nearly  four  thousand  years  ago. 
The  incorporation  of  Ashur  in  a  larger  empire,  the  increased 
civilisation,  the  consequent  rise  in  the  scale  of  living,  were  all 
producing  rising  prices.  To  meet  the  outcry  against  profiteer¬ 
ing,  Shamshi  Adad  promulgated  a  decree  by  which  he  an¬ 
nounced  the  standard  prices  which  were  to  obtain  in  his 
domain.  It  is  of  interest  to  compare  them  with  the  tariff  de¬ 
creed  at  almost  the  same  time  by  Sin-gashid,  one  of  the  inde¬ 
pendent  princes  who  had  arisen  in  south  Babylonia.  In 
Uruk  the  shekel  buys  three  measures  of  wheat;  in  Assyria 
but  two  are  given.  This  is  as  we  should  expect,  for  Babylonia 
was  the  granary  of  the  world,  and  the  territory  around  Ashur 
could  not  for  a  moment  compare  with  it  in  fertility.  In  the 
same  manner,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  in  Uruk  the 
shekel  will  purchase  thirty  measures  of  oil,  in  Ashur  only 
twelve.  On  the  other  hand,  we  should  suppose  that  the  city 
which  had  at  its  very  doors  steppes  across  which  roved  vast 
flocks  of  sheep  would  furnish  cheaper  wool  than  Babylonia, 
and  again  we  are  not  disappointed,  for  twenty-five  pounds  of 
wool  cost  no  more  at  Ashur  than  twelve  at  Uruk. 

Ashur  owed  its  beginnings  as  a  great  city  to  Shamshi  Adad. 
The  great  wall  was  fortified  and  its  base  was  now  of  gypsum 
blocks,  though  the  upper  portion  was  still  of  mud  brick, 
rough  and  uncleansed  of  impurities.  Instead  of  mud  mortar, 
“  earth  of  Ubase,”  rock  asphalt  from  one  of  the  springs  a 
day’s  journey  north  of  Ashur,  was  laid  cold;  it  gives  one  a 
shock  to  realise  that  this  spring  is  one  of  the  indications  of 
petroleum  which  has  caused  the  Mosul  oil-fields  to  be  in  dis¬ 
pute  between  Turks  and  British.  Canals  of  unhewn  limestone 
and  gypsum  drained  the  walls.  To  him  are  also  to  be  ascribed 
the  first  ramparts  along  the  Tigris,  with  stone  facing  and  broad 
bastions  instead  of  towers,  which  for  the  first  time  brought 
the  enlarged  city  within  the  fortifications. 

For  the  first  time,  likewise,  Ashur  owned  a  worthy  abode. 
The  structure,  adobe  upon  a  stone  foundation,  formed  a  paral¬ 
lelogram,  something  over  a  hundred  yards  in  length  by  about 
half  that  width,  and  surrounded  a  central  court  with  its  sacred 


30 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


well,  and  extended  as  far  into  the  northeast  point  as  possible. 
On  three  sides  were  rows  of  long,  narrow  rooms,  on  the  fourth 
was  the  temple  proper,  a  long,  rather  narrow  forehall,  a  smaller 
shrine,  and  four  little  storerooms  behind.  To  northwest  and 
southeast  were  openings  through  which  traffic  might  pass. 
Many  additions  were  made  in  later  times,  but  the  original 
core  was  never  changed  in  ground  plan.  Southwest  of  the 
temple  was  the  temple  tower,  a  solid  mass  of  brickwork  laid 
on  the  native  rock,  two  hundred  feet  on  the  side  and  at  least 
a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high.  The  monotony  of  the  fagade 
was  broken  only  by  vertical  lines.  Farther  west  was  a  new 
palace,  and,  since  he  worshipped  the  sun-god  Shamash  in  his 
name,  a  temple  for  Shamash  and  Sin,  divinities  of  the  sun  and 
moon. 

The  great  Shamshi  Adad  was  followed  by  Ishme  Dagan, 
by  a  man  whose  name  ends  in  Ashshat,  and  by  Rimush. 
Another  group  is  headed  by  Adasi  and  his  son  Bel-ibni,  to 
whom  Esarhaddon  pointed  with  pride  as  ancestors.  He  calls 
Adasi  “the  founder  of  the  kingdom  of  Assyria/’  which  can 
only  mean  that  he  freed  Ashur  from  subjection  to  the  king¬ 
dom  on  the  Euphrates.  The  remainder  of  this  group,  Shabai, 
Sharma  Adad  I,  Gizil  Sin,  Zimzai,  Lullai,  have  unusual  names; 
one  edition  of  the  ruler  list  omits  the  whole  group  and  thus 
indicates  a  doubt  as  to  their  legitimacy. 

These  kings  fill  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  and 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth.  They  are  names  and  nothing 
more,  and  they  are  characteristic  of  the  period  throughout 
the  Near  East.  In  Babylonia,  the  so-called  Second  Dynasty 
was  recognised  as  holding  the  hegemony,  but  its  power  was 
confined  to  the  southern  half,  and  even  here  such  rulers  as 
Sin-gashid  of  Uruk  challenged  its  rights  to  the  land.  In  the 
north  there  was  anarchy,  closed  at  last  by  the  sack  of  Babylon 
by  Gandash,  the  Kashshite  (1745). 

Elam  had  seen  great  changes.  The  original  Shumerians 
had  been  supplanted  as  a  ruling  race  by  new  hordes  from  the 
north  and  east,  and  with  them  appears  on  the  historical  stage 
a  new  and  little  recognised  group,  the  Caucasian.  So  called 


THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SOWN 


31 


because  to-day  their  only  representatives  have  found  a  last 
refuge  in  the  Caucasus  mountains,  in  antiquity  there  were 
notable  peoples  who  spoke  these  tongues.  If  we  may  judge 
from  their  names  and  from  a  vocabulary  of  Kashshite  words 
which  the  Babylonian  scholars  compiled,  they  were  Caucasian. 
To  the  south  were  the  tribes  we  specifically  call  Elamite. 
Traces  of  their  pecular  language  are  found  as  early  as  the  days 
of  Naram  Sin  of  Agade,  with  whom  an  unknown  ruler  struck 
a  treaty;  by  this  time  they  were  independent  and  writing  their 
own  records,  and  their  successors  were  to  be  the  last  serious 
enemies  of  Assyria. 

North  of  Assyria  the  tribes  who  were  to  form  the  later  Hal- 
dian  empire  were  settling  in  the  rough  hills  of  Armenia.  Cau¬ 
casian  seems  also  the  native  language  of  Mitanni,  though  the 
aristocracy  bear  Iranian  names.  The  original  Hittites  in 
Asia  Minor  had  been  Caucasian  in  speech,  though  by  this  time 
an  incoming  Indo-European  aristocracy  had  profoundly  modi¬ 
fied  the  Hittite  vocabulary,  though  hardly  the  syntax.  The 
two  most  enigmatic  languages  of  Europe,  Etruscan  and  Basque, 
may  be  found  to  belong  to  this  group. 

A  third  dynasty  of  Babylon  had  been  founded  by  these 
Kashshites,  whose  earlier  kings  placed  “King  of  the  Kash¬ 
shites”  first  in  their  titularies.  In  Egypt,  the  glorious  twelfth 
dynasty  had  closed  a  generation  earlier  (1788),  and  only 
local  princelings  contended  with  each  other  in  never-ending 
struggles. 

During  this  period  of  utter  darkness,  there  appear  the  Hyk- 
sos:  if  there  is  still  much  obscurity  about  their  race,  we  may 
at  least  assert  that  they  were  west  Semites  and  that  their 
chief  centre  of  power  was  north  Syria.  A  statue  of  their 
greatest  king,  Khian,  has  been  found  in  north  Babylonia,  an 
alabaster  with  his  name  in  Cnossus  of  Crete. 

About  the  time  that  the  third  dynasty  begins  in  Babylonia, 
a  new  dynasty  commences  in  Ashur.  The  names  of  the  rulers 
are  Pan  Ninua,  Sharma  Adad  II,  Erishum  III,  Shamshi 
Adad  II,  Ishme  Dagan  II,  Shamshi  Adad  III,  an  unknown, 
Puzur  Ashir  III,  Enlil-nasir  I,  Nur-ili,  Ishme  Dagan  III. 


32 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Again  we  have  names  and  nothing  more,  but  the  names  are  at 
least  west  Semitic,  with  their  frequent  invocation  of  the  chief 
gods,  Adad  and  Dagan.  Two  Shamshi  Adads  and  two  Ishme 
Dagans  can  only  be  named  in  imitation  of  the  mighty  Shamshi 
Adad  and  his  son.  The  connection  with  the  Euphrates  settle¬ 
ments  was  probably  renewed,  and  perhaps  the  empire  did  not 
pause  here.  It  is  tempting  to  identify  this  empire  with  that 
of  the  Hyksos.1 

1  For  early  Assyria,  cf.  AJSL.,  XXXVI,  120  ff.;  XXXVIII,  225  ff.  The 
Ashur  excavations  published  in  preliminary  form  Mittheilungen  der  deutschen 
Orient-Gesellschaft ;  of  the  final  publication,  only  Der  Anu-Adad  Tempel,  Die 
Festungswerke,  Die  Stelenreihen,  Die  archaischen  Ischtar-Tempel,  all  by  W.  Andrae, 
have  thus  far  appeared;  the  inscriptions  are  given  in  the  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Assur 
in  various  series  edited  by  L.  Messerschmidt,  O.  Schroeder,  and  E.  Ebeling;  for 
the  king  lists,  cf.  E.  Weidner,  Die  Konige  von  Assyrien. 


CHAPTER  IV 


2j 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 

After  such  obscurity,  we  are  blinded  by  the  sudden  step 
into  the  full  light  of  history.  Without  warning,  the  hitherto 
politically  isolated  states  of  the  Near  East  come  into  close, 
even  intimate,  relations,  which  are  witnessed  to  by  full  Egyp¬ 
tian  annals,  by  a  diplomatic  history  from  Assyria,  and  by  the 
archives  of  the  Egyptian  and  Hittite  chancelleries.  Through 
these,  we  are  able  to  work  out  the  intricacies  of  a  veritable 
balance  of  power.1 

Beyond  a  doubt,  the  colossus  of  this  world  was  Egypt.  In 
the  old  days  she  had  been  far  from  militaristic,  content  to 
send  an  occasional  band  of  soldiers  to  mine  turquoises  or 
copper  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula,  or  to  plunder  the  tribes  of 
the  upper  Nile  of  their  scanty  hoard  of  gold.  The  inroad  of 
the  Hyksos  had  changed  all  this.  They  had  conquered  the 
Nile  valley  and  had  insulted  all  the  oldest  and  most  cherished 
convictions  of  its  inhabitants.  So  severe  was  the  effort  to 
expel  the  Hyksos  that  the  energy  generated  was  sufficient  to 
carry  the  Egyptians  without  pause  to  the  Euphrates  and  to 
make  Egyptian  influence  dominant  throughout  the  civilised 
world.  Syria  and  Palestine  were  definitely  within  her  empire, 
and  obeyed  her  orders  implicitly;  the  states  beyond  retained 
a  precarious  independence,  and  sought  to  postpone  the  day  of 
reckoning  with  gifts.2 

Babylonia  was  much  fallen  from  her  former  estate.  There 
could  be  no  denial  that  she  was  still  the  second  great  power, 
but  at  what  a  distance !  Her  territory  was  strictly  limited  to 
the  alluvium,  or,  at  best,  to  the  few  square  miles  of  debatable 
country  to  the  north,  her  prestige  had  suffered  under  the  weak 

1  Cf.  Near  East  Problems  in  the  Second  Pre-Christian  Millennium ,  Jour.  Egyjpt. 
Arch.,  VIII,  223  ff. 

2  Cf.  Breasted,  History  of  Egypt,  211  ff. 

33 


34 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Kashshites,  her  young  kings  had  been  reduced  to  begging  gold 
from  the  Pharaoh,  and  to  seeking  marriage  with  Egyptian 
princesses,  even  if  they  were  not  quite  genuine.1 

Out  of  the  north,  a  new  competitor  had  suddenly  appeared 
full  grown.  Archaeology  informs  us  that  from  the  most  re¬ 
mote  times  there  had  been  a  branch  of  the  neolithic  civilisa¬ 
tion  in  Asia  Minor.  In  the  twenty-eighth  century  before 
Christ,  there  was  a  settlement  of  Semitic  merchants  in  Cappa¬ 
docia  who  invoked  the  aid  of  the  elder  Sargon.  The  colony 
was  still  near  the  foot  of  Mount  Argseus  four,  hundred  years 
later  during  the  Ur  dynasty.  There  is  no  hint  of  war  in  their 
writings,  which  consist  of  business  documents  and  business 
letters.  They  left  a  highly  important  legacy,  for  through  their 
agency  cuneiform  writing  was  introduced  into  Asia  Minor 
and  became  the  common  system  of  the  next  period. 

Without  more  preliminary  preparation,  the  year  1500  finds 
a  great  empire  in  Asia  Minor.  Its  capital  was  in  the  north- 
central  part  of  the  peninsula  and  was  known  to  foreigners  as 
Hatte,  to  the  natives  as  Hattushash.  As  so  often  in  the  an¬ 
cient  world,  capital  and  folk  had  the  same  name,  whence  came 
the  Biblical  Hittites,  the  term  we  employ  to-day  for  this 
race.  Their  capital,  with  its  mighty  temples  and  palaces,  its 
sculptures,  and  rock-cut  pictographs,  its  huge  wall  sprawling 
down  the  sloping  hill  on  which  the  city  was  perched,  has  re¬ 
cently  been  excavated,  and  its  hoard  of  tablets' is  now  in  process 
of  publication.  Many  are  in  the  diplomatic  language  of  the 
age,  in  Babylonian,  and  are  now  available  to  the  historian.2 
The  larger  number  are  in  the  cuneiform  character  but  in  the 
language  of  the  land.  Thanks  to  the  vocabularies  prepared 
to  assist  the  scribes  in  the  mastery  of  the  foreign  Babylonian 
and  Shumerian,  thanks  even  more  to  the  ideographic  writing 
common  to  the  various  languages  which  used  the  cuneiform, 
the  general  sense  of  the  annals  can  already  be  made  out.3 

1  For  Babylonia  under  the  third  and  fourth  dynasties,  cf.  AJSL.,  XXXVI, 
120  ff. 

2  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Bogliazkoi ;  Luckenbill,  AJSL.,  XXXVII,  161  ff. 

3  F.  Hrozny,  Hethitische  Reilschrifttexte  aus  Boghazkoi,  191? 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 


35 


The  language  of  the  higher  classes  shows  extraordinary 
similarities  to  the  Indo-European  languages,  and  especially 
to  the  Latin,  combined  with  other  elements  which  seem  equally 
non-Indo-European.  Five  other  languages,  of  the  most  di¬ 
verse  character,  are  represented  in  the  archives;  while  the 
philologists  are  puzzling  over  their  interpretation,  it  is  futile 
for  the  historian  to  attempt  to  assign  them  to  a  definite  por¬ 
tion  of  the  empire.  Finally,  we  have  the  still  undeciphered 
pictographs  on  the  rocks.1 

Judged  by  their  portraits,  the  Hittites  w~ere  a  very  mixed 
people.  Some  appear  decidedly  Mongolian,  with  slant  eyes, 
snub  noses,  and  sloping  foreheads,  and  wearing  a  veritable 
pigtail;  others  may  be  those  of  the  men  who  introduced  the 
Indo-European  language. 

About  the  year  1500  the  first  known  king  of  the  Hittites, 
the  father  of  Hattushilish  I,  conquered  a  whole  list  of  towns 
in  Cappadocia,  the  most  important  of  which  was  Tyana,  to 
be  famous  as  the  home  of  the  anti-Christ  Apollonius.  The 
third  of  these  kings,  Murshilish  I,  claims  the  capture  of  Aleppo, 
which  has  always  been  the  most  important  city  in  north 
Syria  when  oriental  influences  have  been  in  the  ascendant. 
He  does  not  mention  it,  but  the  capture  of  Aleppo  brought 
him  into  contact  with  Egypt,  and  the  intricate  diplomacy  of 
the  balance  of  power  begins.2 

Ahmose  (1580-1557)  had  reached  central  Syria  and  the 
Phoenicians,  Amenhotep  I  raided  all  Syria,  Thutmose  I  was 
at  Niy  and  hunted  elephants  in  Naharina  within  the  Euphrates 
bend.  Thus  the  Egyptians  might  set  up  a  claim  for  all  Syria. 
Queen  Hatshepsut  ruled  less  firmly,  and  when  Thutmose  III 
began  his  first  Syrian  expedition  in  1479,  even  Sharuhen  on 
the  extreme  southern  boundary  was  in  revolt,  though  the 
decisive  battle  with  the  king  of  Kadesh  was  fought  at  Megiddo. 
The  next  year,  1478,  we  have  Thutmose  listing  the  “  tribute  ” 
of  the  “  Chief  of  Ashur,”  lapis  lazuli,  vessels  of  coloured  stone, 
horses,  wagons,  valuable  woods. 

1  Olmstead-Charles-Wrench,  Ilittite  Inscriptions. 

2Forrer,  MDOG.,  LXI,  20,  now  places  this  group  in  the  twentieth  century. 


36 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


The  Egyptian  pompously  speaks  of  “  tribute  ” ;  to  understand 
what  it  really  meant,  we  must  turn  to  Assyrian  history  again. 
We  reach  firm  ground  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century 
with  Ashir-nirari  I,  son  of  Ishme  Dagan  III,  who  gave  the 
capital  a  new  wall,  while  palaces  and  temples  to  Sin,  Shamash, 
and  Enlil  testify  to  a  certain  prosperity.  Puzur  Ashir  IY 
continued  the  work  on  the  mushlal  wall  and  built  a  new  one 
to  surround  the  “New  City/’  the  suburb  to  the  south.  We 
have  the  first  report  of  formal  treaty  relations  with  Baby¬ 
lonia,  for  he  and  Burna  Buriash  I  “swore  an  oath  and  estab¬ 
lished  their  boundary  in  friendly  agreement.’’  The  successor 
of  Enlil-nasir  II,  Ashur-rabi  I,  may  be  dated  about  1490-1470, 
and  is  probably  our  desired  “Chief  of  Ashur,”  but  he  is  quite 
an  independent  king,  and  he  would  have  been  bitterly  resent¬ 
ful  had  he  known  that  Thutmose  had  been  mean  enough  to 
speak  of  his  “tribute.”  He  desired  aid  against  Babylon  and 
protection  against  Mitanni;  Egypt  would  welcome  an  enemy 
in  the  rear  of  Mitanni,  who  might  even  avail  against  the 
Hittites. 

Thutmose  did  not  consider  it  wise  to  attack  Naharina,  the 
Mitannian  country,  until  1469,  by  which  time  it  might  be 
assumed  that  Assyria  had  seriously  weakened  her  rival.  The 
same  year  he  claims  to  have  received  the  “tribute”  of  Babylon 
and  the  Hittites,  but  he  hesitates  to  give  the  names  of  the 
kings  in  question.  So  far  from  the  Hittite  admitting  his 
tribute  to  Egypt,  Murshilish  actually  claims  the  conquest  of 
Aleppo,  and,  not  to  be  outdone  by  his  rival,  he  goes  him  one 
better  by  claiming  a  similar  capture  of  Babylon  with  much 
booty !  Conquest  of  Mitanni  by  Egypt  was  impossible  if 
Aleppo  was  in  Hittite  hands,  while  Hittite  and  Egyptian  claims 
over  Babylon  were  equally  absurd.  Rarely  can  we  catch  two 
rivals  in  such  a  beautiful  series  of  lies. 

Thutmose  made  an  expedition  against  Naharina-Mitanni 
in  1467 ;  the  “chief”  of  the  great  Hittites  is  mentioned  in  1461 ; 
in  1460  he  again  fought  with  Naharina.  The  scene  of  the  ex¬ 
ploits  of  the  hero  Amenemhab  was  near  Aleppo  and  Carche- 
mish.  By  this  time,  one  of  his  officials,  Hantishilish,  had  mur- 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 


37 


dered  Murshilish  and  had  married  his  daughter.  Not  content 
with  advancing  his  frontier  into  the  anti-Taurus  region,  where 
he  took  Arabissus  and  Togormah,  on  the  road  to  the  Euphrates, 
he  captured  Carchemish,  which  Thutmose  had  just  claimed 
for  himself. 

Conquest  of  Carchemish  gave  the  Hittites  a  bridge-head  on 
the  Euphrates.  Situated  at  the  upper  end  of  a  fertile  flood- 
plain,  its  chief  importance  lay  in  its  control  of  the  most  direct 
road  across  the  river  from  Assyria  to  Syria  and  the  empires 
beyond.  Its  peaceful  population  in  neolithic  times  lived  with¬ 
out  walls;  their  scanty  wealth  of  hand-made  pots  attracted 
no  enemy;  no  wall  would  include  their  barley-fields.  Their 
dead  found  safety  under  the  house  wherein  they  had  lived, 
doubled  up  in  jars. 

Copper  was  just  being  introduced  when  a  new  race  arrived; 
that  they  were  warriors  is  shown  by  the  prompt  fortification 
of  the  mound  which  had  gradually  arisen  by  the  riverside 
from  the  debris  of  their  predecessors.  Their  pottery  was  now 
made  on  the  wheel,  but  this  advance  in  technic  was  countered 
by  the  slight  use  of  coloured  decoration.  Their  dead  were 
interred  in  stone-lined  coffins,  the  body  was  extended  at  full 
length,  there  was  store  of  implements  and  weapons  for  the 
life  to  come. 

Advantageously  placed  at  the  Euphrates  crossing,  the  city 
grew  apace,  and  the  time  came  when  it  had  covered  so  much 
ground  that  a  new  wall  was  demanded.  Along  the  river,  it 
was  constructed  of  mud  brick  laid  on  stone  foundations;  the 
greater  part  of  the  land  defences  consisted  of  a  simple  rampart 
of  earth  which  was  led  arbitrarily  to  include  certain  important 
buildings  and  paid  no  attention  to  the  topography.  It  was 
this  city  which  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Hittites.1 

The  accession  of  Amenhotep  II  found  all  central  Syria  in 
full  revolt,  which  can  only  mean  that  the  cities  had  gone  over 
to  the  Hittites.  Again  the  defeat  of  Naharina  is  proclaimed, 
and  for  the  first  time  we  have  direct  mention  of  Mitanni. 
Without  doubt,  the  tribute  claimed  from  Mitanni  marks  the 

1  Woolley,  Carchemish,  38  ff. 


38 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


alliance  of  the  two  countries,  for  between  them  Hittite  terri¬ 
tory  intervened. 

At  the  height  of  its  power,  Mitanni  included  almost  all  the 
grain-growing  territory  within  the  great  bend  of  the  Euphrates, 
and  it  had  begun  the  annexation  of  a  few  square  miles  beyond 
that  stream.  Harran,  reputed  home  of  the  Hebrew  patriarch 
Abraham,  would  appear  to  have  been  the  chief  city,  and  its 
nobility  went  by  the  name  of  Harri,  in  whom  some  have  pro¬ 
fessed  to  see  the  first  Aryans,  or  Mariani,  connected  by  others 
with  the  Sanscrit  Marya.  Some  of  the  names  of  its  chief 
personages  do  seem  Iranian,  but  the  specimens  of  the  language 
preserved  in  the  letters  connect  it  rather  with  Caucasian. 

As  a  result  of  his  alliance  with  Egypt,  the  Mitannian  king 
Saushshatar  invaded  Assyria,  and  “by  his  might  and  power” 
took  the  palace  doors  of  silver  and  gold  and  set  them  up  in  his 
palace  at  Washshukkani.  The  Assyrian  king  can  hardly 
have  been  Ashir-nirari  II;  more  probably  it  was  Ashir-bel- 
nisheshu,  or  his  brother  Ashir-rim-nisheshu,  who  made  a 
friendly  agreement  with  the  Babylonian  Kara  Indash  I.  The 
Hittite  rulers  of  this  period  were  Huzziash,  the  result  of  an¬ 
other  palace  revolution,  and  Telibunush,  the  author  of  the 
inscription  which  has  told  us  all  that  has  gone  before.  His 
own  exploits  were  in  the  later  Isauria. 

Thutmose  IV  (1420-1411)  began  the  series  of  marriages  with 
Mitannian  princesses  which  were  to  show  that  that  country 
was  definitely  allied  with  Egypt.  This  was  with  the  daughter 
of  Artatama,  who  had  just  succeeded  his  father  Saushshatar, 
and  the  letter  in  which  it  is  mentioned  indicates  that  it  came 
after  a  series  of  peaceful  negotiations;  Thutmose,  however, 
claims  that  he  won  spoil  on  his  first  campaign  against  Naharina ! 
One  can  only  wonder  what  his  new-made  bride  thought  of  such 
a  compliment !  He  also  established  “true  brotherhood”  with 
a  king  of  Babylonia,  perhaps  Kara  Indash  I  (1420-1408). 

Through  the  Mitannian  marriage,  Amenhotep  III  (1411- 
1375)  was  the  grandson  of  Artatama  of  Mitanni,  and  so  was 
half  Asiatic  himself.  It  was  therefore  natural  that  he  should 
be  on  good  terms  with  his  uncle,  Shutarna  of  Mitanni,  and  that 


/ 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 


39 


in  true  Asiatic  fashion  he  should  receive  his  cousin  Giluhipa  in 
marriage  (1401).  Shutarna  died  shortly  after  this,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Tushratta,  whose  daughter  Taduhipa  became  the 
wife  of  the  coming  Amenhotep  IV.  Amenhotep  III  was  also 
on  good  terms  with  Ashur-nadin-ahe  (1410-1390)  of  Assyria, 
and  sent  him  a  subvention  of  gold,  but  this  did  not  prevent  his 
cousin  Tushratta  from  filling  his  palace  with  gifts  brought  as 
“tribute”  by  “the  Assyrian.”  Nineveh  was  ruled  by  his 
sukallu  Nabu-li,  and  in  his  insolence  he  went  so  far  as  to  exile 
Ishtar  from  her  beloved  city  that  she  might  visit  with  her 
healing  his  mighty  cousin.  As  for  Ashur  himself,  he  was 
accorded  a  subordinate  position  among  the  gods  of  Mitanni. 

With  Babylonia  begging  for  gold,  with  Assyria  receiving  a 
subvention  and  under  the  control  of  his  cousin  of  Mitanni, 
with  Syria  his  in  greater  part,  with  the  king  of  Alashia  or  Cy¬ 
prus  entreating  him  not  to  ally  himself  with  the  Hittites,  the 
position  of  Amenhotep  might  seem  secure. 

An  example  illustrates  the  untruth  of  this  supposition. 
Nuhashshe  in  north  Syria  pretended  to  be  Egyptian,  but  was 
in  reality  independent  under  its  king,  Sharrupsha;  Tushratta 
ignored  the  claims  of  his  cousin  and  quietly  made  the  at¬ 
tempt  to  bring  it  over  to  Mitanni.  Sharrupsha  hurried  off  a 
messenger  to  Shuppiluliunaa,  saying:  “The  servant  of  the  Hit- 
tite  king  am  I,  save  me.”  Shuppiluliuma,  who  had  recently 
succeeded  his  father,  Hattushilish  II,  hurried  off  troops  and 
Tushratta  was  driven  away,  all  Mitannian  territory  west  of  the 
Euphrates  was  quickly  overrun,  the  Euphrates  was  crossed. 
Tushratta  led  out  his  army  but  did  not  dare  to  attack  the 
invader,  who  recrossed  to  the  right  bank  and  took  possession 
of  Aleppo.  Akit  Teshub  had  raised  a  conspiracy  against  his 
brother  Takuwa,  the  Egyptian  nominee  for  king  of  Niy. 
Then  the  Hittite  turned  against  Nuhashshe,  and  Sharrupsha 
escaped  with  his  life,  leaving  his  servant  Takib-sharri  to  be 
appointed  in  his  place. 

Tushratta  claimed  the  return  of  the  Hittite  king  as  a  vic¬ 
tory  and  sent  a  gift  to  his  Egyptian  relative  from  the  spoil. 
The  natives  of  Mitanni  were  less  certain  of  the  victory.  When 


40 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


his  son  Artatama  “ waxed  strong  with  his  servants/’  he  dis¬ 
placed  his  father.  He  remained  content  with  the  title  “King 
of  Harri,”  and  handed  over  Mitanni  to  his  son  Shutarna,  to 
the  prejudice  of  another  son  of  Tushratta  named  Mattiuaza. 
Shuppiluliuma  expresses  a  righteous  indignation  over  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  outside  aid  was  invoked.  All  Mitanni  went  to 
ruin,  and  the  Assyrians  and  the  men  of  Alshe  divided  it  be¬ 
tween  them.  The  Mitannian  possessions  were  wasted  by 
being  given  to  Assyria.  The  palace  designed  by  Tushratta 
was  wrecked  by  his  grandson,  and  the  treasures  with  which  it 
had  been  filled  were  assigned  to  the  Assyrian  who  had  been  the 
servant  of  his  father  and  had  brought  him  tribute.  The  doors 
of  silver  and  gold  which  Saushshatar  had  plundered  from  As¬ 
syria  were  removed  from  his  palace  and  returned  to  the  As¬ 
syrians;  in  his  meanness  Shutarna  returned  them  to  Assyria. 
Alshe,  the  fertile  triangle  just  south  of  the  Armenian  mountain 
rim,  received  gold  and  silver  vessels.  The  houses  of  the  Harri 
were  ruined,  and  the  nobles  were  deported  to  Assyria  and  to 
Alshe;  when  they  attempted  return,  Shutarna  crucified  them. 
Akit  Teshub  fled  with  two  hundred  chariots  and  his  Harri 
to  Babylonia,  but  its  king  confiscated  all  their  possessions  and 
sought  to  kill  the  refugees. 

Romance  now  further  complicated  the  already  tangled 
threads.  Shutarna  lifted  up  his  hand  to  kill  his  brother  Mat¬ 
tiuaza,  but  he  tore  himself  out  of  his  hand  and  escaped  to  cast 
himself  at  the  feet  of  the  Hittite  “Sun.”  The  youthful  royal 
exile  made  romantic  appeal  to  the  heart  of  the  king’s  daughter, 
who  “looked  upon  Mitanni  with  favor”  and  persuaded  her 
father  to  give  her  in  marriage  to  the  stranger.  Another  daugh¬ 
ter  of  the  “Sun”  had  been  married  to  another  royal  exile, 
Biashshilim  of  Carchemish.  Together,  the  two  bridegrooms 
set  forth  to  reclaim  their  heritage.  Carchemish  was  quickly 
recovered;  from  this  time  on  the  Hittite  pictographs  were  al¬ 
ways  employed  in  inscriptions,  and  the  Hittite  art  was  followed 
with  such  success  that  the  later  productions  of  Carchemish 
rival  those  from  the  capital  of  her  former  mistress.1 

1  Hogarth-Woolley,  Carchemish. 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 


41 


From  his  friend’s  capital  Mattiuaza  sent  to  the  men  of 
Irrite,  just  across  his  border:  “Shutarna  alienated  the  Harri 
with  the  riches  of  Tushratta  and  made  them  of  one  mind.” 
The  reply  was  less  polite :  “  Why  have  you  come  ?  If  you  come 
to  fight,  come  on!”  Despite  additional  troops  sent  by  Shu¬ 
tarna,  Irrite  fell,  and  the  men  of  Harran  accepted  Mattiuaza’s 
rule.  The  Assyrian  also  sent  a  messenger  to  implore  peace. 
With  the  delimitation  of  the  boundary  between  the  two  bride¬ 
grooms,  the  political  story  ends. 

The  new  wife  of  the  Mitannian  ruler  had  no  intention  that 
her  romance  should  fade  so  quickly.  In  highly  practical 
fashion,  she  caused  her  father  to  lay  down  the  rules  that  should 
govern  the  house  of  Mitanni.  Ten  women  were  permitted 
in  her  husband’s  harem,  but  the  daughter  of  Shuppiluliuma 
was  to  be  the  only  queen;  only  her  children  might  succeed  to 
the  throne ;  no  woman  should  be  her  rival. 

In  all  this  long  account  “the  Assyrian”  frequently  appears, 
but  his  name  is  deliberately  suppressed  by  Shuppiluliuma. 
“The  Assyrian”  was  Ashur-uballit,  son  of  Eriba  Adad,  the 
first  of  the  men  who  created  the  Assyrian  empire.  A  few 
square  miles  about  Ashur  was  its  extent  at  his  accession;  at 
its  close  Assyria  had  won  recognition  as  one  of  the  great  powers. 
By  taking  advantage  of  the  troubles  in  Mitanni,  he  gained 
his  freedom  and  extended  his  territory.  Ashur  might  no  longer 
be  invoked  among  the  gods  of  Mitanni.  Ishtar  of  Nineveh 
once  more  became  an  Assyrian,  and  her  recovery  was  cele¬ 
brated  by  the  restoration  of  her  temple.  A  governor  of  Nine¬ 
veh  appears  by  the  side  of  the  “governor  of  the  land,”  the  ruler 
of  Ashur.  The  independent  state  of  Singara  known  to  the 
Egyptians  disappeared,  and  the  provinces  of  Isana  and  Nimit 
Ishtar  are  found  west  of  the  Tigris.  The  wide-extending 
Shubari  represented  a  part  of  the  spoils  extorted  from  Mitanni; 
the  first  line  of  mountains  to  the  north  and  east  of  the  Trian¬ 
gle,  the  region  of  Musri,  followed. 

Thus  was  added  the  third  part  of  Assyria,  the  hill  country, 
deep,  well-watered,  fertile  valleys,  hidden  away  by  snow¬ 
capped  ranges.  The  temperature  in  Ashur  might  rise  to  a 


42 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


hundred  and  fifteen  degrees;  it  was  now  possible  to  spend  the 
summer  in  comfort  in  the  mountain,  and  thus  keep  up  the 
physical  tone.  Quiet  vacation  rest  was  not  for  the  Assyrian. 
He  needed  occupation,  even  in  the  summer,  and  there  were 
ever  more  valleys  beyond  whose  local  “ kings’ ;  had  not  yet 
paid  tribute.  So  the  summer  campaign  in  the  mountains 
northeast  of  the  Triangle  became  a  regular  institution. 

The  letter  by  which  Ashur-uballit  replied  to  the  coming  of 
Egyptian  ambassadors  has  been  preserved  in  the  Egyptian 
archives.  He  calls  himself  “King  of  Ashur,  the  Great  King/’ 
and  insists  on  full  equality  by  addressing  the  Egyptian  as 
brother.  He  tells  Ikhnaton  to  his  face  that  when  his  grand¬ 
father  Ashur-nadin-ahe  sent  to  Egypt,  presumably  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  Mitannian  raids,  they  presented  him  in  return  with 
twenty  talents  of  gold,  and  he  delicately  suggests  the  like  for 
himself.  Burna  Buriash  II  of  Babylon  protested  vigorously 
to  the  Egyptian  court  against  the  recognition  accorded  the 
Assyrians,  his  vassals,  but  his  own  predecessors  had  made 
many  treaties  of  equality  with  their  former  subjects,  and  the 
recent  loss  of  autonomy  was  to  Mitanni  and  not  to  Babylon. 

Ashur-uballit  earned  a  sweet  revenge  on  Burna  Buriash  by 
persuading  his  successor,  Kara  Indash  II  (1367-1355),  to  marry 
his  own  daughter  and  to  agree  upon  a  new  set  of  boundary 
regulations.  This  was  not  the  last  of  the  matter,  for  the 
son  of  this  union,  Kadashman  Harbe  (1355-1344),  was  barely 
ten  years  of  age  when  he  began  his  rule,  and  the  successes 
claimed  for  him,  annihilation  of  the  Aramaean  Sute  and  the 
fortification  of  a  site  on  the  Elamite  border,  were  in  reality 
confessions  of  weakness.  That  the  tribesmen  could  invade 
Babylonia  at  all  is  the  probable  reason  why  the  Kashshites 
rose  against  the  half  Assyrian  youth  and  put  him  out  of  the 
way.  In  his  stead  they  chose  Nazi  Bugash,  the  “son  of  a 
nobody.”  This  was  the  very  quintessence  of  revenge  that  in 
his  old  age  Ashur-uballit  might  settle  the  succession  of  the 
haughty  power  which  in  his  youth  had  dared  call  him  vassal. 
For  the  first,  but  far  from  the  last,  time  Assyrian  armies  ap¬ 
peared  in  the  alluvium  and  placed  on  the  uncertain  throne 


, 


* 


■ 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 


43 


the  infant  son  of  Kadashman  Harbe,  Kurigalzu  the  Younger 
(1344-1321). 

Rarely  in  this  earlier  period  do  we  find  a  native  Assyrian 
document  which  more  than  mentions  a  conquest,  a  wall,  or 
a  temple.  A  unique  tablet  comes  from  Marduk-nadin-ahe, 
the  scribe  of  Ashur-uballit.  Although  his  name  is  Babylonian 
and  that  of  his  father  and  grandfather  as  well,  he  is  a  true 
Assyrian,  who  can  refer  to  “the  houses  of  his  fathers.”  He  is 
our  first  example  of  a  Babylonianised  Assyrian,  that  type 
which  was  to  become  so  common  in  later  centuries.  His 
residence  was  under  the  shadow  of  the  Marduk  temple,  which 
dated  back  to  the  days  when  Ashur  was  a  part  of  Babylonia 
and  the  god  Ashur  was  Marduk’s  vassal.  In  his  house  was  a 
well,  a  storeroom,  and  underground  apartments  such  as  to-day 
protect  the  wealthy  and  the  foreigner  from  the  unbearable 
summer’s  heat. 

That  he  could  see  his  descendants  on  the  throne  of  Babylon 
argues  a  long  rule  for  Ashur-uballit  (1370-1340).  When  his 
own  was  occupied  by  his  son  Enlil-nirari  (1340-1325),  the 
nascent  empire  was  forced  to  meet  an  attack  by  Kurigalzu. 
Encouraged  by  his  capture  of  the  Elamite  Hurpa-tila,  he  de¬ 
manded  the  northern  kingdom  through  the  combination  in 
himself  of  both  claims.  The  battle  was  contested  on  the 
Tigris;  the  Babylonian  historian  asserts  that  the  enemy  king 
was  slain  in  a  great  defeat,  the  Assyrian  that  his  master  won 
the  victory,  destroyed  the  hostile  camp,  and  caused  the  terri¬ 
tory  to  be  divided.  A  minor  discovery  in  the  Assyrian  capital 
proves  the  latter  true,  a  votive  eye  with  a  dedication  to  Enlil 
by  Kurigalzu  which  formed  part  of  the  booty.  To  secure 
Babylon  from  expected  attack,  Kurigalzu  built  the  “Wall” 
named  after  himself,  which  is  to-day  the  most  striking  land¬ 
mark  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Baghdad,  and  is  one  of  the  two 
traditional  rivals  for  the  traditional  “Tower  of  Babel.” 

Babylonian  practice  had  been  thus  far  followed  in  the 
preparation  of  the  records  intended  for  the  edification  of  pos¬ 
terity.  A  few  words  indicating  descent,  a  few  as  dedication 
to  a  god,  a  word  as  to  the  buildings,  possibly  at  the  very  end 


44 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


a  line  or  two  mentioning  the  countries  conquered,  such  was 
their  simple  form.  Intercourse  with  other  nations  had  taught 
them  that  no  self-respecting  king  was  without  his  annals.  Our 
first  example  comes  from  the  reign  of  Arik-den-ilu  (1325-1310), 
and  the  very  crudeness  shows  how  new  was  the  form.  Lines 
divide  the  tablet  into  sections  which  represent  five  separate 
campaigns,  but  the  account  is  barely  more  than  a  list  of  names, 
united  by  a  few  formulas. 

The  greater  part  of  his  advance  was  made  at  the  expense  of 
Mitanni.  Iier  breakdown  was  permitting  the  entrance  of 
Aramaeans,  Ahlame  and  Sute,  into  southern  Mesopotamia; 
Assyria  checked  them  and  formed  a  small  province  in  the 
Iauri  region  with  Tabiteas  capital  and  the  turtanu  as  governor. 
From  the  east  of  Mitanni,  the  Assyrians  detached  Halah, 
the  later  home  of  the  “Lost  Ten  Tribes  of  Israel,”  and  to  the 
north  Kutmuh  was  secured;  both  were  added  to  the  province 
of  Nineveh.  The  Qute  in  the  Armenian  foot-hills  were  in¬ 
vaded,  and  seven  thousand  men  were  defeated  on  the  Elamite 
frontier. 


CHAPTER  Y 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 

A  decidedly  strenuous  period  of  activity  is  opened  by  Adad- 
nirari  I  (1310-1280).  Particularly  noteworthy  were  his  addi¬ 
tions  of  territory  to  the  northwest.  The  long  reign  of  the 
Hittite  Shuppiluliuma  had  been  followed  by  those  of  his  sons 
Arnuwandash  I  and  Murshilish  II.  Aleppo  with  its  king, 
Rimsharma,  was  bound  anew  by  treaty.  Kissuwadna,  or 
Cilicia,  was  recovered  from  the  Harri  to  the  advantage  of  its 
king,  Shuna  Ashshura,  whose  name  bore  the  same  acknowledg¬ 
ment  of  the  might  of  Ashur  that  we  find  in  the  Cappadocian 
tablets  of  a  thousand  years  before. 

The  last  act  of  Murshilish  was  a  war  with  Seti  I  of  Egypt 
(1313-1292).  The  conflict  was  not  confined  to  these  two 
combatants,  for  Nazi  Maruttash  (1321-1295)  of  Babylonia 
threw  down  the  gage  of  battle  to  the  Assyrians,  presumably 
as  a  Hittite  ally.  The  inevitable  battle  was  contested  at  Kar 
Ishtar,  and  the  camp  and  the  priests  of  the  Babylonians  fell 
into  their  rivals’  hands.  By  the  boundary,  drawn  east  and 
west  through  the  battle-field  to  the  junction  of  the  Balih  with 
the  Euphrates,  all  claim  to  Mesopotamia  was  surrendered. 
Adad-nirari  could  assume  the  title  “King  of  the  Universe” 
which  he  so  pointedly  denies  to  his  father. 

Peace  was  shortly  made  between  Seti  and  the  new  Hittite 
monarch,  Muwattallish,  but  the  truce  was  not  of  long  duration, 
for  under  Ramses  II  (1292-1225)  the  war  broke  out  with  re¬ 
newed  violence.  The  new  king  of  the  Hittites  wrote  the  new 
king  of  Babylon,  Kadashman  Turgu  (1295-1278),  that  he  had 
been  forced  to  wage  a  defensive  war  against  the  Egyptians, 
and  a  sympathetic  answer  was  returned,  but  no  action  was 
taken.  Ramses  might  celebrate  the  battle  of  Kadesh  (1288) 
in  song  and  temple  relief,  but  in  his  heart  he  recognised  that 
he  was  fighting  a  losing  battle  and  appealed  to  the  Assyrian 

45 


Map  2.  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ASSYRIAN  EMPIRE  (1340-860). 


Map  3.  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ASSYRIAN  EMPIRE  (860-626). 


48 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


king.  Adad-nirari  replied  by  sending  gifts  and  a  promise  of 
aid;  like  Thutmose  III,  Ramses  took  a  mean  advantage  of  the 
occasion  and  in  his  annals  used  the  ugly  name  of  “  tribute  ” 
(1282). 

Did  Adad-nirari  learn  of  this  verbal  treachery?  He  was 
of  little  aid  to  Egypt  in  her  fight  with  the  Hittites,  but  the 
withdrawal  of  Hittite  aid  to  Mitanni  was  a  godsend  to  Assyria. 
The  writer  of  a  letter  in  the  Hittite  archives  tells  his  corre¬ 
spondent  that  in  the  days  of  Adad-nirari,  Hani  Galbat,  that 
is,  Mitanni,  was  invaded  and  destroyed.  The  king  himself 
chronicles  the  capture  of  Shubari,  of  Kashiari,  the  rough  coun¬ 
try  south  of  the  west  Tigris,  of  Harran,  the  most  important 
city  in  Mitanni,  of  Washshukkanni,  once  proud  of  the  palace 
doors  of  an  Assyrian,  of  Carchemish  on  the  Euphrates.  Adad- 
nirari’s  proudest  title  was  “Founder  of  Cities”;  he  deserved 
the  magnificent  bronze  sword  of  state  which  bears  his  name. 

His  two  predecessors  had  been  too  busy  building  up  the 
empire  to  build  in  the  capital;  Adad-nirari  did  both.  Space 
around  the  Ashur  temple  was  becoming  scarce,  and  the  move¬ 
ment  west  along  the  northern  slope  began  with  his  construc¬ 
tion  of  the  “Court  of  the  Peoples”  some  distance  beyond  the 
temple  tower.  A  shrine  to  Marduk  indicated  that  the  wars 
with  Babylon  were  not  to  prevent  the  steady  advance  of  Baby- 
lonianisation. 

The  whole  circuit  of  the  city  walls  was  rebuilt.  The  great 
terrace  which  protected  the  Ashur  temple  to  the  north  was 
pushed  out  to  secure  more  space.  Instead  of  the  earlier  clay 
mortar,  Adad-nirari  sent  to  the  bitumen  springs  a  few  miles 
north  and  secured  “earth  of  Ubase”  to  bind  together  the 
cut  stone.  Baked  bricks  with  asphalt  were  common,  and 
where  adobe  was  used  the  bricks  were  larger,  better  cleansed, 
and  yellow  rather  than  gray.  Since  its  first  erection  by  Puzur 
Ashir  IY,  the  wall  of  the  southern  suburb  had  twice  needed 
repair,  at  the  hands  of  Ashir-bel-nisheshu  and  of  Eriba  Adad, 
but  by  this  time  some  parts  were  fallen  and  others  weak,  so  that 
they  demanded  renewal.  The  wall  of  the  suburb  was  in  still 
worse  condition  on  the  river-bank.  Mighty  blocks  from  the 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 


49 


mountain  were  cast  in  as  base,  above  was  hewn  stone  and  baked 
brick,  but  the  spring  floods  have  been  so  successful  in  their 
attack  that  not  one  stone  survives.  His  retaining  wall  along 
the  river  side  of  the  main  city  was  continued  without  essential 
change  by  his  successors,  but  again  the  river  has  been  vic¬ 
torious,  and  we  have  only  a  short  stretch  to  testify  to  the  truth 
of  his  statement  that  he  did  make  these  walls  of  limestone, 
baked  bricks,  and  asphalt,  and  that  he  prepared  memorial 
tablets,  each  hidden  in  its  little  room. 

■  Shalmaneser  I  (1280-1260)  determined  to  follow  his  father’s 
example  by  lopping  off  some  more  territory  from  the  Hittite 
possessions.  Unfortunately  for  him,  just  at  this  moment  there 
came  a  change  in  affairs.  The  anti-Egyptian  Muwattallish 
was  put  out  of  the  way  by  his  brother  Hattushilish  III.  A 
son  of  Muwattallish,  Urhi  Teshub,  fled  to  Ramses,  who  sur¬ 
rendered  him  as  the  price  of  a  peace,  to  be  confirmed  by  his 
marriage  to  the  Hittite  monarch’s  daughter  (1272). 

This  peace  was  most  unfortunate  for  Shalmaneser.  When 
the  Mitannian  king  began  to  suspect  the  next  Assyrian  objec¬ 
tive,  he  sent  his  Hittite  overlord  a  letter,  telling  how  Hani 
Galbat  had  been  destroyed  by  Adad-nirari.  He  complains 
that  a  king  of  Shupria  has  been  invited  by  his  lord  as  protection 
against  the  writer  and  has  seized  his  throne,  so  that  now  the 
king  of  Shupria  is  destroying  the  land  by  oppression. 

So  when  Shalmaneser  had  penetrated  the  difficult  defiles 
into  what  was  left  of  Mitanni  land,  he  found  its  ruler  supported 
by  his  Hittite  master.  This  was  more  than  Shalmaneser 
had  bargained  for,  and  when  the  Hittites  seized  the  passes, 
the  invaders  began  to  suffer  from  lack  of  water.  Shalmaneser 
admits  that  it  was  their  thirst  and  the  need  of  a  camping- 
ground  that  caused  his  army  so  bravely  to  advance  into  the 
masses  of  the  enemy  troops;  he  claims,  however,  that  he  killed 
their  soldiers  to  a  countless  number,  waged  war  against  his 
chief  enemy  at  the  point  of  the  spear  to  the  setting  sun,  re¬ 
duced  numerous  cities  to  mounds  and  ruins.  His  sweeping 
victories  from  Taidi  to  Carchemish  are  verbal  repetitions  of 
his  father’s. 


50 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


His  accession  year  had  been  devoted  to  chastising  the  re¬ 
volted  Uruadri,  our  first  mention  of  the  Urartu  which  was  so 
to  plague  the  Assyrians  and,  as  Ararat,  was  to  be  known  to 
Bible  readers  as  the  resting-place  of  the  Ark.  He  raised  his 
hands  in  prayer,  mustered  his  armies,  and  climbed  up  against 
their  mighty  mountain  fortresses;  in  three  days  the  whole  land 
was  made  submissive  to  the  feet  of  Ashur;  their  men  were 
brought  down  dead;  for  servitude  and  fear  he  chose  them; 
tribute  that  was  heavy  for  a  mountain  country  was  for  all 
time  imposed  upon  them.  The  strong  mountain  fortress  of 
Arina  had  revolted,  despising  the  god  Ashur;  over  its  site  was 
sown  stones,  its  dust  was  gathered  and  poured  out  at  the  gate 
of  Ashur  as  witness  for  future  days. 

Before  they  had  broken  into  open  revolt,  the  Qute,  whose 
numbers  were  as  countless  as  the  stars  of  heaven,  had  stirred 
up  enmity  against  Assyria.  Shalmaneser  raised  his  hands  to 
Ashur  and  the  great  gods  in  witness:  “Faithfully  they  prom¬ 
ised  their  good  faith.”  The  camp  was  left  behind,  and  with 
only  the  choicest  of  the  chariots  he  rushed  into  battle.  The 
bodies  of  the  wide-spreading  hosts  were  poured  out  like  water 
from  Uruadri  to  Kutmuh,  remote  regions  and  distant  and  inac¬ 
cessible  plains.  A  wedge  was  driven  into  the  former  territory 
of  the  Hittit.es;  to  make  its  control  more  sure,  Shalmaneser 
planted  at  Halsi  Luha,  in  the  triangle  of  fertile  land  north  of 
Amedi,  a  colony  which  endured  four  centuries. 

Further  advance  was  prevented  by  the  troubles  which  Hat- 
tushilish  had  stirred  up  on  the  southern  boundary.  The 
Hittite  had  been  allied  with  Kadashman  Turgu;  as  soon  as  he 
learned  that  a  new  king  had  ascended  the  throne  in  Baby¬ 
lonia,  he  sent  a  letter  of  condolence  on  the  death  of  his 
“brother,”  and  described  the  copious  tears  he  had  shed  when 
he  heard  the  sad  news.  He  unfortunately  added  that  if  the 
nobles  did  not  recognise  the  claim  of  Kadashman  Enlil,  the 
son  of  his  old  ally,  he  would  follow  up  his  messenger  with  an 
army.  Innocent  and  even  praiseworthy  as  this  would  seem 
at  first  glance,  such  action  might  well  establish  a  precedent 
for  Hittite  interference.  The  Babylonians  deeply  resented  it, 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 


51 


and  Itti  Marduk-balatu,  the  prime  minister,  bluntly  replied 
that  Hattushilish  was  not  addressing  the  Babylonians  as  broth¬ 
ers,  rather  as  slaves  was  he  making  them  subject. 

Intercourse  was  renewed  when  Kadashman  Enlil  came  of 
age,  but  the  newly  found  brotherhood  was  soon  endangered 
when  information  filtered  in  of  an  agreement  between  the 
Hittites  and  Egyptians.  Kadashman  Enlil  inquired  if  it 
made  any  change  in  his  relation  to  the  contracting  parties. 
The  Hittite  reply  was  ambiguous.  The  former  enemies  have 
indeed  become  brothers;  with  a  common  enemy  they  will 
fight,  and  with  a  common  friend  will  they  be  at  peace.  Rebels 
or  enemies  who  flee  to  each  other’s  lands  will  be  given  up  on 
demand. 

Having  thus  gently  but  forcefully  left  the  Babylonians  out¬ 
side  the  new  entente,  Hattushilish  proceeds  to  calm  down  his 
friend.  After  all,  there  are  certain  contingencies  through  which 
the  new  alliance  might  be  broken.  For  instance,  if  the  extra¬ 
dition  clause  does  not  work,  the  kings  will  be  angry  with  one 
another;  if  Ramses  aids  his  enemy,  there  will  be  war.  If 
Egypt  has  prevented  the  transmission  of  official  letters  from 
Babylonia  to  the  Hittite  land,  then  Kadashman  Enlil  should 
take  action.  Hattushilish  is  properly  shocked  by  such  a  con¬ 
fession  of  weakness  as  that  his  messengers  have  been  dis¬ 
continued  because  of  attacks  by  the  Ahlame  along  the  Eu¬ 
phrates.  Such  a  word  is  not  good,  and  by  it  the  sovereignty 
of  his  brother  suffers  detraction. 

Assyria  is  the  most  serious  sinner.  If  its  king  detains  a 
Babylonian  ambassador  in  his  land,  that  is  an  act  of  war, 
and  surely  Babylonia  is  not  a  conquered  land.  What  king  of 
Assyria  is  powerful  enough  to  restrain  his  messengers?  Ka¬ 
dashman  Enlil  is  a  mighty  man  of  valor,  a  youthful  wild  bull. 
At  last  Hattushilish  comes  out  plainly  and  begs  his  young 
brother  to  go  and  spoil  the  hostile  land,  kill  his  enemy,  for  the 
king  who  lays  aside  his  weapons  is  sure  to  suffer  in  the  end. 
Though  the  enemy  land  be  three  times  or  four  as  great  as  his 
own,  let  him  march  against  it. 

Such  an  attack  against  Assyria  did  actually  take  place. 


52 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


After  a  brief  reign  (1278-1270),  the  greater  part  of  it  in  his 
minority,  Kadashman  Enlil  disappeared.  Hattushilish  had 
worked  upon  his  youthful  vanity  to  his  destruction. 

With  all  the  booty  collected  in  the  wars,  Assyrian  building 
went  on  apace.  The  Ashur  temple  had  been  burned,  and  its 
ruins  were  still  untouched.  Shalmaneser  respected  the  ground 
plan  of  Shamshi  Adad  I,  but  set  up  new  stone  foundations 
and  basalt  sockets  for  the  gate-posts.  The  long  sides  of  the 
temple  were  continued  into  a  forecourt  with  surrounding 
rooms  and  a  great  gate  with  broad  towers  in  front.  Near  by 
was  a  reservoir,  with  a  capacity  of  eighty  cubic  yards.  Shal¬ 
maneser  occupied  the  addition  as  a  palace,  but  since  its  walls 
were  in  alignment  with  the  temple,  later  rulers  handed  it  over 
to  religious  use.  Had  it  been  priest-ridden  Babylonia,  the 
palace  would  have  been  far  from  the  temple;  Assyrian  kings 
were  their  own  chief  priests,  and  took  up  their  abode  under  the 
shadow  of  the  sacred  edifice. 

Nineveh,  too,  possessed  a  palace,  and  the  Ishtar  temple  was 
restored.  We  hear  for  the  first  time  of  another  city,  destined 
to  be  an  Assyrian  capital,  Kalhu,  the  Biblical  Calah,  a  day’s 
journey  south  of  Nineveh,  near  the  junction  of  the  Tigris  and 
the  Upper  Zab. 

Connected  with  the  new  additions  to  Assyrian  territory  goes 
a  change  in  the  titulary.  Characteristic  of  the  preceding 
period  was  “ governor  of  Bel  and  priest  of  Ashur.”  To  this 
Shalmaneser  added  “the  mighty  king,”  which  was  to  be  hence¬ 
forth  a  permanent  attachment,  and  “King  of  All,”  a  modifica¬ 
tion  of  the  Babylonian  “King  of  the  Universe.”  The  full 
form  appears  under  Tukulti  Urta  I,  “King  of  the  Universe, 
King  of  Assyria,  Mighty  King,  King  of  the  Four  World  Re¬ 
gions.” 

His  accession  was  greeted  by  the  invasion  of  twenty-seven 
thousand  Hittites  from  beyond  the  Euphrates  crossing;  they 
were  thrown  back  into  their  own  land,  and  Dudhaliash,  suc¬ 
cessor  of  Hattushilish  III,  sent  a  peaceful  letter  to  Tukulti 
Urta  (1260-1232).  His  first  full  year  he  devoted  to  the  north. 
Qute  and  its  neighbours  took  his  hands;  the  wealth  of  their 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 


53 


mountains  and  their  highlands  yearly  they  brought  to  Ashur; 
a  long  list  of  lands,  Qurhi,  Kutmuh,  and  the  wide-extending 
Shubari,  were  burned  over.  Highlands  and  valleys,  impassa¬ 
ble  places,  whose  path  no  king  had  before  known,  in  the  power 
of  his  abounding  strength  he  traversed.  Four  kings  of  Nairi 
land  stood  forth  in  mighty  array  to  make  battle  and  con¬ 
flict,  but  the  ravines  and  gullies  of  the  mountains  received  their 
blood.  In  the  course  of  these  expeditions,  he  reached  the  shore 
of  the  Upper  Sea,  Lake  Van,  and  no  Assyrian  king  went  farther; 
on  his  eastern  border  his  wars  led  him  across  the  Lower  Zab 
and  into  the  mountains. 

The  Euphrates  settlements,  Mari,  Hana,  and  Rapiqu,  next 
claimed  his  attention,  and  with  them  over  thirty  of  the  “ lands’ ’ 
occupied  by  the  nomad  Ahlame.  On  the  line  of  the  Tigris  he 
added  Arrapha,  a  few  years  before  an  autonomous  state  in 
relation  with  Egypt.  Thus  both  roads  into  Babylonia  came 
under  his  control. 

Babylonia  had  suffered  a  series  of  minorities,  those  of 
Kadashman  Enlil  (1278-1270),  Kudur  Enlil  (1270-1261), 
Shagarakti  Shuriash  (1261-1248),  and  Kashtiliash  III  (1248- 
1240),  four  generations  with  an  average  of  less  than  ten  years 
each.  Assyria  had  been  more  fortunate,  for  six  generations 
had  the  normal  average  of  twenty.  Such  a  condition  invited 
aggression.  Without  apparent  excuse,  Tukulti  Urta  invaded 
the  lands  of  his  southern  neighbour.  The  boy  Kashtiliash 
was  brought  in  fetters  to  the  presence  of  the  lord  Ashur,  there 
to  be  sacrificed.  His  place  was  assigned  to  Enlil-nadin-shum, 
but  when  the  pressure  of  Babylonian  patriots  became  too 
strong  to  be  resisted,  even  by  an  Assyrian  nominee,  and  he  re¬ 
volted,  Tukulti  Urta  returned  to  Babylon,  levelled  the  city 
ramparts,  and  slaughtered  the  citizens.  “The  treasures  of 
the  temple  Esagila  and  of  Babylon  profanely  he  brought  forth, 
the  great  lord  Marduk  he  removed  from  his  abode,  he  carried 
him  off  to  Assyria,  governors  he  established  in  the  land.” 

Tukulti  Urta  was  the  first  Assyrian  monarch  to  face  the 
dilemma  of  effectively  ruling  a  hostile  country  and  at  the  same 
time  respecting  it  as  the  motherland  of  his  own  culture.  His 


54 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


first  experiment,  a  vassal  king,  was  a  failure;  his  governor, 
Kadashman  Harbe  II,  was  considered  an  independent  ruler  by 
the  patriots,  though  Tukulti  Urta  had  no  doubt  in  his  own  mind 
as  to  who  was  the  true  monarch.  He  claimed  sovereignty 
over  the  Four  World  Regions,  Kar  Duniash,  Shumer,  and 
Akkad,  and  to  these  he  added  the  rule  of  the  cities  of  Sippar 
and  Babylon.  At  the  close,  he  calls  himself  king  of  Shubari, 
Qute,  and  Nairi.  Between  he  lists  two  ancient  lands,  Dilmun 
and  Meluhha;  the  former  was  an  island  in  the  Persian  Gulf, 
noted  for  its  pearls,  where  once  the  creation  was  localised;  the 
other,  in  the  Arabian  peninsula,  was  the  source  of  much-prized 
products  to  early  rulers  of  Babylonia.  Why  he  might  claim 
these  titles  is  unknown. 

He  was  devoted  to  Ashur  in  his  earlier  days.  The  weakest 
portion  of  the  fortifications  was  at  the  northwest  where  a  sad¬ 
dle  connected  with  the  main  ridge.  With  bronze  axes  he  cut 
down  to  the  water-level  and  constructed  the  first  city  moat. 
Only  at  the  Gate  of  the  Metal  Worker  was  there  a  ramp, 
and  this  was  protected  by  an  outwork  with  arched  postern 
gates  so  low  that  one  must  stoop  to  enter.  A  square  of 
sloping  rock  was  left  before  the  gate  as  a  trap  for  any 
enemy  who  might  succeed  in  crossing  the  moat.  Everywhere 
the  walls  were  repaired  and  based  on  the  solid  rock. 

For  the  double  purpose  of  commanding  this  gate  and  of 
securing  a  free  space  farther  west,  a  huge  platform  was  erected, 
an  irregular  quadrangle  some  six  hundred  feet  on  the  side, 
which  filled  almost  the  whole  northwest  corner  of  the  city 
between  the  temple  tower  of  Adad  and  the  Gate  of  the  Metal 
Worker.  One  angle  extended  out  from  the  north  cliff,  and 
made  unnecessary  further  walling.  The  name  assigned  it  was 
“ Palace  of  the  Royalty  of  the  Lands.” 

The  temple  of  Ishtar  the  Assyrian  was  largely  restored. 
Several  of  his  foundation  deposits  have  been  laid  bare.  A 
huge  block  of  lead,  weighing  some  eight  hundred  pounds,  on 
which  was  a  building  inscription,  was  covered  with  glass 
beads  of  various  colours,  sea-shells,  semiprecious  stones,  and 
bits  of  lead,  copper,  and  iron.  A  layer  of  reeds  and  clay  mor- 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 


55 


tar,  and  more  beads,  formed  a  bed  for  a  tiny  square  each  of 
silver  and  gold,  and  for  somewhat  larger  plates  in  the  precious 
metals  with  the  foundation  narrative.  The  same  inscription 
appeared  on  the  five-ton  block  of  limestone  and  the  second 
lump  of  lead  which  topped  the  whole. 

All  too  soon  he  tired  of  his  old  capital  and  began  to  long  for 
a  city  which  should  immortalise  his  name.  To  the  north 
on  the  opposite  shore  of  the  river,  the  new  capital  grew  up 
almost  overnight.  The  fertile  plain  surrounding  was  irrigated 
by  a  new  canal,  around  it  rose  massive  city  walls,  within  was 
a  mighty  palace,  a  new  temple  for  Ashur,  shrines  for  the  other 
gods. 

Tukulti  Urta  might  indulge  the  hope  that  his  Kar  Tukulti 
Urta  was  “  established  forever  the  nobles  whose  memories 
centred  about  the  older  city  could  not  be  so  easily  reconciled. 
The  hatred  of  the  Babylonians  was  not  lessened  when  they 
perceived  the  inability  of  their  new  master  to  protect  them 
against  foreign  invasion.  The  first  of  a  new  line  of  Elamite 
kings,  Kitin  Hutrutash,  had  already  entered  the  alluvium  in 
the  days  of  Enlil-nadin-shum  and  had  carried  off  men  from 
Nippur,  Der,  and  Harsagkalama.  No  success  had  been  won 
against  them  by  the  Assyrian  nominee,  and  Adad-shum-iddina 
had  found  them  at  Nisin  and  had  fought  with  them  on  the 
Tigris. 

Kashshites  and  native  Babylonians  alike  rallied  to  the 
support  of  the  son  of  the  last  legitimate  king,  Adad-shum- 
nasir  (1231-1201),  and  after  seven  years  of  rule  Tukulti  Urta 
was  driven  out  of  Babylonia.  Failure  abroad  furnished  the 
needful  excuse  for  those  at  home  to  demand  his  deposition. 
Ashur-nadin-apal  led  the  revolt  against  his  father,  Kar  Tukulti 
Urta  was  besieged,  and  its  founder  perished  by  the  sword. 
So  sudden  was  the  abandonment  of  the  city  that  its  excavators 
found  in  the  ovens  the  pottery  which  the  makers  had  failed 
to  complete.1 

Assyria  had  become  a  world-power  under  a  series  of  able 
kings;  Tukulti  Urta  was  the  last.  His  unworthy  son  did 

1  King,  Records  of  the  Reign  of  Tukulti  Ninib  I,  1904;  Bachman,  MDOG.,  LIII, 
41  ff.;  Schroeder,  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Assur,  II,  60  f. 


56 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


nothing  to  justify  his  parricide,  save  to  make  a  peace  with  the 
Babylonians  which  acknowledged  their  overlordship  and  recti¬ 
fied  the  frontier  in  their  favour.  Ashur-nirari  III  (1213-1207) 
shared  his  lands  with  Nabu-daiani,  and  both  received  a  letter 
from  the  Babylonian  “  Great  King”  in  which  he  simply  calls 
them  “two  kings  of  Assyria.”  Some  one  has  repeatedly  given 
them  orders  for  grain  and  fish;  this  was  without  command  from 
their  lord.  They  are  to  inform  the  unknown  that  Adad- 
shum-nasir  will  bring  ruin  upon  him,  since  what  he  has  done  is 
contrary  to  the  orders  of  the  gods.1 

The  very  name  of  Enlil-kudur-usur,  “0  Enlil,  protect  the 
frontier,”  shows  the  extremity  into  which  Assyria  had  so  rapidly 
fallen;  after  five  years  of  doubtful  control  (1207-1202),  he,  too, 
was  assailed  by  Adad-shum-nasir  and  left  dead  on  the  field  of 
battle.  Equal  lack  of  success  characterised  the  first  year  of 
a  usurper,  Saggal-apal-ekur2  (1202-1175),  the  son  of  Eriba 
Adad.  He  was  besieged  in  his  capital  and  was  in  dire  danger; 
then  the  tide  turned,  the  Assyrians  won  a  battle  in  the  vicinity 
of  Ashur,  and  Adad-shum-nasir  was  compelled  to  return  home 
in  disgrace.  For  thirty  years  he  had  upheld  the  old  traditions 
of  Babylonian  dominance  over  Assyria;  his  failure  was  fol¬ 
lowed  by  his  death,  and  his  son  Meli  Shipak  took  his  place 
(1201-1186).  Merodach  Baladan  I  (1186-1173)  claims  the 
title  “King  of  the  Universe,”  which  should  mean  another 
retreat  of  the  Assyrian  frontier. 

Had  the  throne  of  Babylon  been  filled  by  a  young  and 
vigorous  dynasty,  the  fate  of  Assyria  might  have  been  sealed. 
Fortunately  for  her  future,  this  period  of  exhaustion  was 
marked  by  even  more  serious  weakness  throughout  the  whole 
Near  East.  Egypt  was  slowly  decaying  under  the  later  Ram- 
essidse  of  the  nineteenth  dynasty,  less  and  less  able  to  hold 
their  own  at  home.  Arnuwandash  II,  son  of  Dudhaliash, 
still  retained  Aleppo  and  Carchemish  within  the  Hittite  sphere 
of  interest,  though  Tukulti  Urta  had  challenged  their  owner¬ 
ship.  Ramses  III  reports  that  the  “  peoples  of  the  sea”  broke 

'H.  924. 

2  Cf.  Luckenbill,  AJSL.,  XXXIX,  63. 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 


57 


the  back  of  the  Hittites,  and  then  our  knowledge  of  Asia 
Minor  becomes  a  literal  blank  for  centuries. 

As  the  older  powers  disappeared  from  the  Fertile  Crescent, 
barbarism  descended.  The  recent  excavations  at  Carchemish 
have  illustrated  the  process  in  one  of  the  older  centres  of  cul¬ 
ture.  Complete  destruction  marked  the  trail  of  the  invaders. 
They  were  men  of  the  northern  grasslands,  for  their  weapons 
were  now  of  iron;  their  armour  might  have  been  worn  by  the 
Athenian  hoplite  of  the  days  of  Pericles.  Their  dresses  were 
northern,  for  they  were  fastened  by  the  fibula  or  safety-pin 
in  the  shape  of  a  bow.  They  burned  their  dead  and  placed 
the  ashes  in  urns.  Their  coarse  pottery  was  adorned  with 
painted  black  designs  of  a  geometrical  character  and  similar 
to  contemporary  types  discovered  in  Cyprus;  that  this  simi¬ 
larity  is  due  to  contact  as  well  as  to  likeness  in  race  is  indicated 
by  the  presence  of  imported  wares  from  Cyprus,  from  the 
Greek  islands,  and  even  from  the  Greek  mainland  of  the  days 
when  Mycenae  was  at  her  height. 

In  still  another  respect,  these  new  inhabitants  of  Carchemish 
were  men  of  the  north  and  so  unlike  their  predecessors.  While 
the  earlier  dwellers  had  been  content  with  crude  earthworks 
which  defied  the  very  elements  of  military  defence,  the  north¬ 
erners  cleverly  seized  every  advantage  which  could  be  won  by 
higher  ground  or  by  a  rock  foundation  for  their  walls.  No 
longer  was  a  moat  demanded,  for  the  entire  circumvallation 
was  double,  and  rectangular  salients  swept  the  line  of  the 
straight  wall.  Once  military  principles  were  followed,  the 
defenders  cared  little  for  appearances,  and  the  older  Hittite 
sculptures  were  refaced  and  cut  down  or  the  inscriptions  turned 
against  the  inner  core.1 

Along  the  edge  of  the  desert  new  hordes  of  Semitic  nomads 
were  at  the  same  time  pouring  out.  Aramaean  tribes,  Ahlame, 
Sute,  and  the  like,  settled  in  Mesopotamia,  and  then,  as  dis¬ 
integration  continued,  even  in  Babylonia.  The  kingdom  of 
Amurru  in  north  Syria,  opposite  Arvad,  which  we  last  see  as  a 
Hittite  vassal  under  Bantishinni,  endured  long  enough  to  fur- 

1  Woolley,  Carchemish ,  48  ff. 


58 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


nish  later  writers  with  a  picture  of  a  great  Amorite  empire,1 
and  then  it  went  down  before  attacks  of  invading  Aramaeans. 
By  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  isolated  Hebrew 
tribes,  the  Habiri  of  the  Amarna  correspondence,  were  work¬ 
ing  their  way  into  Palestine;  with  the  breakdown  of  Egyptian 
rule,  there  ensued  those  struggles  so  vividly  portrayed  in 
the  Book  of  Judges.  Before  they  could  secure  the  coast  land, 
along  the  northern  section  of  which  the  Phoenician  cities  were 
just  beginning  to  prosper,  they  met  an  enemy  who  combined 
greater  aptitude  for  war  with  a  higher  material  culture. 
Driven  from  their  home  in  Crete  by  the  mail-clad  Greek 
barbarians,  and  foiled  in  their  invasion  of  Egypt,  the  Philis¬ 
tines  settled  down  on  the  fertile  plain  to  which  they  were  to 
furnish  the  name  of  Palestine.  All  these  conclusions  must 
be  conjectured  in  the  light  of  later  events,  for  the  Hebrews 
alone  told  their  tales  of  the  “ period  of  the  Judges.” 

Six  centuries  the  Kashshites  had  ruled  Babylonia,  and  the 
line  was  worn  out.  Just  then  Ashur-dan  I  began  his  long 
reign  (1175-1140)  in  Assyria,  while  Babylon  could  only  place 
opposite  the  one-year  reign  of  Zamama-shum-iddina  (1173). 
The  Assyrian  king  made  a  dash  into  the  debatable  land  and 
won  back  Akarsallu  and  Zaban,  where  the  Ur  dynasty  had 
devastated  Simurru.  The  boundary  stood  not  far  from  the 
Ialman  mountains,  due  east  of  Ashur  itself,  and  that  this  could 
be  considered  a  gain  is  the  best  testimony  to  the  terrible  losses 
of  the  last  half-century. 

The  year  was  not  to  be  marked  for  Babylonia  by  this  loss 
alone,  for  in  it  the  Elamite  ruler  Shutruk  Nahhunte  I,  accom¬ 
panied  by  his  son  Kutir  Nahhunte  I,  marched  into  Babylonia 
and  put  its  king  to  death.  His  successor,  Bel-nadin-ahe 
(1173-1169),  managed  to  keep  himself  on  the  throne  three 
years,  and  then  he,  too,  was  forced  to  succumb  to  the  Elamite 
flood.  Kashshite  rule  came  to  an  abrupt  end,  and  the  kings 
who  followed  seem  actually  to  have  been  vassals  of  Elam. 

These  rulers  form  a  new  dynasty,  the  fourth,  whose  ancestral 
home  was  in  Nisin,  a  few  miles  south  of  Nippur,  and  which 

1  Clay,  Empire  of  the  Amorites. 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 


59 


had  already  furnished  Babylon  with  one  dynasty.  Marduk- 
shapik-zer  (1169-1152)  and  Urta-nadin-shum  (1152-1146) 
were  indeed  of  little  account,  but  the  son  of  the  second,  the 
first  Nebuchadnezzar,  is  one  of  the  great  figures  in  history. 
After  a  series  of  picturesquely  narrated  campaigns,  by  which 
Elam  was  prostrated  and  Marduk  was  recovered  for  Babylon, 
he  met  in  the  third  year  an  invasion  of  peoples  whom  he  calls 
“Hittites,”  and  who  may  actually  be  northern  barbarians 
from  the  region  of  Carchemish.  The  whole  force  was  impaled 
or  made  prisoner.  He  then  turned  his  attention  to  Assyria, 
where  the  long  reign  of  Ashur-dan  had  ended  in  disaster. 

With  a  modicum  of  imagination  we  may  reconstruct  the 
story  behind  two  letters,  sadly  mutilated  now  and  already 
somewhat  illegible  when  they  wTere  copied  by  the  scribes  of 
Ashur-bani-apal.  One  is  from  a  Babylonian  king,  Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar  himself.  The  story  begins  with  a  certain  Ashur-shum- 
lishir,  who  in  the  time  of  the  writer’s  father  had  been  driven 
from  his  country  and  had  found  refuge  in  Babylonia.  No 
such  name  is  found  in  the  official  lists  of  rulers,  and  the  writer 
of  the  letter  likewise  refuses  to  him  the  title  of  king.  He  is 
only  “lord  of  lands,”  and  while  he  was  in  exile,  in  his  “not 
lordship,”  Urta-tukulti  Ashur  ruled  Assyria,  and  his  name  is 
found  in  the  official  lists.  He  invaded  Babylonia  but  was 
unsuccessful;  perhaps  it  was  at  this  time  he  was  forced  to  re¬ 
turn  to  Babylon  the  statue  of  Marduk  which  Tukulti  Urta 
had  carried  off  ninety-two  years  before.  Ashur-shum-lisliir 
was  restored  with  Babylonian  help,  but  no  sooner  was  he  back 
in  Assyria  than  he  forgot  his  former  humiliation  and  began  to 
speak  words  of  majesty. 

When  Nebuchadnezzar  became  ruler  in  Babylonia,  he  sent 
a  great  noble  to  take  charge  of  the  petty  kinglets  on  the  north¬ 
ern  frontier.  With  him  went  a  certain  Harbi-shipak,  a  Habiri 
by  title  and  a  Kashshite  by  name,  who  had  come  into  Baby¬ 
lonia  with  an  official  of  Ashur-shum-lishir  at  the  beginning  of 
that  prince’s  exile,  and  had  entered  the  Babylonian  service. 
He  stood  in  the  presence  of  the  governor  and  acted  as  inspector. 
Suspicion  seems  to  have  been  roused  that  Harbi-shipak  in 


60 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


reality  recognised  Urta-tukulti  Ashur  as  his  true  lord.  He 
arrived  at  court  with  a  rather  testy  letter  from  the  great 
feudal  noble:  “One  day  only  didst  thou  (the  king)  await  me 
in  Zaqqalu,  long  enough  to  send  those  who  were  counsellors 
and  prudent.  I  was  angry,  for  only  one  day  did  he  await  us 
in  Zaqqalu.” 

The  Babylonian  monarch  had  a  reply  ready  to  his  hand: 
“Have  I  not  been  gracious  to  thee,  have  I  not  blessed  thee 
with  blessings,  and  have  they  not  put  thee  in  charge  of  the 
kings  on  thy  frontier  ?  Why  then  are  your  words  like  those  of 
a  mere  ordinary  official  ?”  The  former  career  of  Harbi- 
shipak  is  known  to  the  king,  the  governor  has  had  him  on  his 
personal  staff,  and  ought  likewise  to  know  his  character. 
“Who  among  you/’  the  officials  on  the  frontier,  “like  a  king 
gives  orders?  On  him  may  Ashur-shum-lishir,  lord  of  lands, 
fall,  and  may  the  word  of  Assyria  be  similar  to  that  of  a  mere 
official,  and  may  they  disagree  with  each  other.  May  Ashur- 
shum-lishir  dwell  in  that  one’s  land.  Since  Harbi-shipak  came 
to  Akkad,  he  has  been  a  sinner,  and  since  he  came,  his  lord, 
Urta-tukulti  Ashur,  is  ravaging  the  land.”  The  governor  has 
proposed  a  meeting  with  the  Assyrian  ruler,  he  will  attend  to 
the  matter,  for  “the  good  of  Akkad  and  of  Assyria  the  god 
desires.”  The  king  answers:  “Do  thou  as  thy  heart  desires,” 
attend  to  the  necessary  arrangements,  “let  us  see  each  other, 
send  thy  deputy  with  the  following  instructions:  ‘The  good  of 
Akkad  and  of  Assyria  he  desires.’  Such  should  be  the  word 
of  kings.” 

A  further  suggestion  is  that  the  governor  cross  over  and 
visit  Urta-tukulti  Ashur,  who  has  been  ravaging  the  land. 
However,  he  did  not  fight  that  year  in  that  land,  though  an 
attempt  has  been  made  to  keep  it  quiet.  The  Babylonian 
king  writes  sharply  on  this  point:  “Since  thou  hast  received 
the  power,  why  hast  thou  not  entered?  And  what  is  this 
about  taking  Urta-tukulti  Ashur  to  the  land  of  Iriqa?”  This, 
by  the  way,  is  our  first  reference  to  Iraq,  the  Arab  name  of 
Babylonia.  Then  he  gives  his  own  opinion  of  his  opponent: 
“Thou  hast  said  of  Urta-tukulti  Ashur:  ‘He  is  a  servant,  he 


THE  FIRST  EMPIRE 


61 


is  not  a  true  man.’  In  fact,  he  is  just  like  you.  Why  does  he 
not  finish  his  task?  The  men  of  Assyria  are  women.” 

Judging  from  the  fragment  of  the  reply  which  has  survived, 
the  governor  was  great  enough  a  noble  that  he  could  afford  to 
speak  plainly:  “It  is  my  slanderer  who  is  full  of  wrath,  he  is 
the  one  who  is  turning  things  upside  down.  Urta-tukulti 
Ashur  only  makes  divinations  and  sees  dreams,  he  does  not 
turn  things  upside  down.”  The  king  had  written  with  evident 
sarcasm:  “Who  among  you  gives  orders  like  a  king?”  With 
equal  sarcasm  the  governor  counters  with  remarks  about 
“old  men  who  are  kings  and  fathers  who  are”  rulers.  He 
makes  it  clear  that  the  words  spoken  to  Nippur,  Sippar,  and 
Babylon,  perhaps  their  charters  of  privileges,  have  not  been 
forgotten  by  them.  No  one,  either  the  enemy,  his  sons,  or 
his  great  ones,  shall  cause  hostility  to  the  kingship  of  his  mas¬ 
ter.  As  to  the  great  men  of  Assyria,  the  report  is  of  Enlil- 
kudur-usur.1 

Shortly  after  Nebuchadnezzar  wrote  this  letter,  Urta- 
tukulti  Ashur  disappeared,  and  his  place  was  taken  by  Mutak- 
kil  Nusku  (1137-1127),  who  restored  the  line  of  Eriba  Adad. 
Ashur-resh-ishi  I  (1127-1115)  claims  to  be  the  “Avenger  of 
Assyria.”  He  took  the  initiative  against  Babylon,  but  Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar,  fresh  from  his  triumphs  in  Elam,  quickly  forced 
the  invader  to  decamp.  The  Babylonians  then  collected  their 
siege-engines  to  beleaguer  Zanqi,  but  the  new  Assyrian  levies 
fell  upon  them  and  he  retreated  hurriedly,  burning  his  siege- 
train  behind  him.  Nebuchadnezzar  collected  a  fresh  army 
and  made  a  second  attempt  upon  Assyria,  but  again  the  de¬ 
fenders  were  successful,  forty  chariots  were  taken,  and  the 
leader  fell  into  their  hands.  Ashur-resh-ishi  could  now  think 
of  restoring  the  empire.  He  claims  to  have  subdued  the  Ah- 
lame,  the  Lulume,  and  the  Qute.  The  stage  was  set  for  Tig- 
lath  Pileser. 

1904,  407  ff. 


1  Pinches,  JRAS., 


CHAPTER  VI 


TIGLATH  PILESER  I  AND  THE  NEW  WORLD 

Tiglath  Pileser  I  does  not  begin  a  new  dynasty  or  in¬ 
augurate  a  new  policy.  Superficially,  the  chief  reason  for 
assigning  him  a  separate  chapter  is  the  fact  that  for  the  first 
time  in  Assyrian  history  we  possess  detailed  annals  from  which 
we  can  reconstruct  a  lifelike  picture.  Actually,  we  must  recog¬ 
nise  that  these  full  annals  are  possible  only  because  there  has 
been  a  complete  change  in  the  parts  played  by  the  chief  actors 
in  western  Asia.1 

Egypt  was  no  longer  a  foreign  power,  and  was  itself  falling 
into  the  separate  parts  which  its  long  length  along  the  Nile 
constantly  threatened.  The  Hittite  empire  was  broken  into 
numerous  units,  Mitanni  was  gone,  Philistines  and  Zakkalu 
had  taken  over  the  seaports  of  Palestine,  and  the  Hebrews  were 
securing  the  hill  country,  Aramaeans  were  settling  in  Syria, 
pressing  into  Mesopotamia,  and  threatening  Babylonia,  the 
men  who  had  perfected  the  Minoan  art  were  in  flight  across 
the  seas  before  the  mail-clad  Greek  barbarians.  The  moun¬ 
tains  of  Armenia  and  Persia  housed  a  perfect  chaos  of  tribes 
without  hint  of  organisation.  The  polished  international  world 
of  the  balance  of  power  was  long  since  gone  and  a  welter 
of  small  and  hostile  states  had  taken  its  place.  The  outlook 
was  discouraging  for  civilisation,  yet  it  is  in  such  periods  of 
disorder  that  are  laid  the  foundations  of  the  great  empires  of 
the  future. 

The  whole  history  of  Tiglath  Pileser  is  the  attempt  to  bring 
some  sort  of  order  into  this  chaos.  It  is  not  always  interesting 
to  trace  his  movements  in  detail,  to  attempt  to  remember 
names  of  persons  and  places  of  small  significance  in  the  world’s 

1  The  reign  is  fully  discussed,  JAOS.,  XXXVII,  169  ff.;  Historiography ,  10  ff. 
Chief  source,  the  Cylinder,  Budge-King,  Annals,  I,  27  ff . ;  new  material  in  Schroe- 
der,  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Assur,  II,  68;  71. 

62 


TIGLATH  PILESER  I  AND  THE  NEW  WORLD  63 


development,  but  it  is  worth  our  while  to  study  typical  illus¬ 
trations  of  the  policy  which  brought  Assyria  reward. 

On  the  northwest  frontier,  for  example,  the  half-century  of 
decline  had  seen  Asianic  peoples,  the  debris  of  the  Hittite 
empire,  forcing  their  way  into  regions  which  had  once  owed 
allegiance  to  Assyria.  Among  these  were  the  Mushki,  from 
whom  the  Cappadocian  capital  of  Mazaka  took  its  name. 
From  the  corner  of  Armenia,  they  had  come  down  into  Alzi, 
the  fertile  triangle  stretching  down  from  near  the  source  of 
the  west  Tigris  to  the  great  bend  at  Amedi  which  we  have 
already  learned  to  know  as  Alshe.  It  was  bad  enough  to  lose 
this  rich  agricultural  plain,  not  to  speak  of  the  copper-mines 
just  to  the  north,  but  when  to  this  there  was  added  Kutmuh, 
the  yet  more  fertile  country  between  the  Tigris  and  Mount 
Kashiari,  it  was  clearly  time  to  act. 

Hastening  through  Mount  Kashiari,  the  first  range  of  hills 
which  stretch  from  east  to  west  along  the  northern  edge  of 
the  plain,  he  engaged  the  twenty  thousand  Mushki  warriors 
in  Kutmuh.  “The  bodies  of  their  warriors  like  the  storm-god 
I  hurled  to  earth,  their  blood  in  the  ravines  and  on  the  heights 
of  the  mountains  I  made  to  flow  down.  Their  heads  I  cut  off, 
by  the  side  of  their  cities  like  grain  heaps  I  piled  up.  Their 
spoil,  their  property,  their  possessions,  to  an  unnumbered 
quantity  I  brought  out.7’ 

The  wretched  inhabitants  fled  across  the  Tigris  to  the  fortress 
of  Shereshe,  but  the  Assyrians  pursued  them  “through  the 
difficult  mountains  and  the  blocked  ways/’  hewing  a  passage 
with  bronze  axes,  and  took  the  stronghold.  The  River  Name 
carried  to  the  Tigris  the  bodies  of  the  Qurhi  hordes  hastening 
to  their  aid,  and  a  booty  of  bronze  unguent  vessels  and  great 
copper  sacrificial  bowls  worthy  the  Assyrian  deities  prove  the 
mines  near  by. 

The  objective  of  the  fourth  campaign  was  “the  lands  of  the 
distant  kings  who  were  on  the  shore  of  the  Upper  Sea,  who  had 
never  known  subjection.7’  By  difficult  trails  and  steep  passes, 
which  no  former  king  had  known  in  their  recesses,  by  blocked 
roads  and  by  paths  which  were  not  open,  he  traversed  sixteen 


64 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


mighty  mountains.  In  the  good  country  he  marched  with 
his  chariots,  in  the  difficult  he  opened  a  way  with  bronze  axes. 
Plane-trees,  the  wood  of  the  mountains,  he  cut  down  to  make 
pontoons  for  the  advance  of  his  troops.  The  line  of  march 
was  up  the  east  Tigris  to  the  south  shore  of  Lake  Van,  and 
then  west  through  the  fertile  plain  to  the  north  of  the  moun¬ 
tains.  Crossing  the  east  Euphrates,  Tiglath  Pileser  fell  upon 
a  confederacy  of  twenty-three  princes,  who  were  ordered  to 
furnish  hostages  and  a  regular  tribute  of  horses  and  cattle. 
At  the  farthest  point  of  advance,  at  Melazgerd,  one  can  still 
see  the  inscription  he  carved. 

His  fifth  campaign  drove  the  Ahlame  “in  one  day”  from  the 
Habur  River  to  Carchemish,  and  across  the  river,  and  fol¬ 
lowed  them  up  on  rafts  laid  on  inflated  skins.  In  the  same 
region  of  Harran  and  of  the  Habur,  he  slaughtered  ten  mighty 
male  elephants  and  took  four  alive.  When  we  compare  this 
with  the  hundred  and  twenty  that  the  Egyptian  Thutmose 
III  hunted  in  this  same  section,  we  may  argue  that  change  of 
climate  has  decreased  the  number  of  elephants — or  suspect 
that  the  earlier  scribe  was  the  more  skilful  flatterer.  Four 
wild  aurochs  were  put  to  death  in  Mitanni  land,  a  hundred  and 
twenty  lions  were  killed  on  foot  and  eight  hundred  from  the 
chariot.  Tiglath  Pileser  was  a  mighty  hunter — if  the  statis¬ 
tics  are  correct. 

His  vacation  ended,  he  must  march  against  a  new  enemy  on 
the  northwest  frontier,  the  Musri,  about  the  east  branch  of 
the  Tigris.  Allied  were  the  Qumani;  Hunusa,  one  of  their 
strongholds,  was  fortified  with  a  triple  wall  of  burnt  brick, 
but  this  did  not  save  it  from  utter  destruction.  Salt  was  sown 
on  the  site,  and  a  chapel  erected  in  which  was  placed  a  bronze 
thunderbolt,  and  written  on  it  the  decree  that  the  city  should 
never  be  rebuilt.  The  royal  city  of  Kibshuna  lost  its  great 
wall  with  piers  of  burnt  brick,  and  the  three  hundred  families 
which  had  supported  the  revolt  were  handed  over  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  pro-Assyrian  party. 

Soon  after,  Tiglath  Pileser  made  a  trip  still  farther  west 
which  had  in  it  the  elements  of  the  spectacular.  Crossing  the 


f 


Fig.  35.  BYBLUS,  THE  OLDEST  PHOENICIAN  CITY,  WHENCE  CAME 

OUR  WORD  FOR  BIBLE. 


Fig.  36.  THE  EARLIEST  SITE  OF  TYRE,  BEFORE  THE  PHOENICIANS 
SECURED  CONTROL  OF  THE  MEDITERRANEAN. 

It  bears  now  the  shrine  of  the  “Beloved  Prophet,”  the  Mohammedan  form  of  Adonis. 


TIGLATH  PILESER  I  AND  THE  NEW  WORLD  65 


Euphrates  and  establishing  on  its  right  bank  the  settlement  of 
Mutkinu,  he  swept  through  north  Syria  to  the  sea,  first  of 
Assyrian  monarchs  to  behold  the  Mediterranean.  The  citizens 
of  Arvad,  secure  on  their  island  in  the  midst  of  the  sea,  gave 
him  a  ride  in  their  ships,  three  double  hours  to  Simirra,  and 
assisted  him  in  killing  a  whale,  the  “  horse  of  the  sea,”  on  the 
trip.  Byblus  and  Sidon  followed  Arvad  in  the  payment  of 
dues,  and  on  his  return  he  placed  a  tribute  of  cedar  beams  for 
the  temple  of  Anu  and  Adad  upon  Ili  Teshub,  the  king  of  the 
“  great  Hittites.” 

At  this  very  time,  Wenamon,  sent  by  Hrihor,  Amon  priest  of 
Thebes,  was  visiting  Byblus;  his  report,  with  its  grim  humour 
and  its  realistic  descriptions,  reveals  Syria  divided  into  small 
states  whose  rulers  were  entirely  independent  of  Egypt  and 
highly  contemptuous  of  claims  set  forth  on  the  basis  of  earlier 
Egyptian  successes.  Absurd  as  they  now  had  become,  they 
were  still  insisted  upon,  and  the  appearance  of  an  Assyrian 
army  in  country  claimed  by  Egypt  could  not  be  permitted  to 
go  without  protest.  An  embassy  was  accordingly  prepared, 
presumably  by  Nesubenebded,  the  Delta  prince  visited  by 
W enamon .  T iglath  Pileser  revenged  Assyria  f or  the  ‘  ‘  tribute  ’  ’ 
claimed  by  Thutmose  III  and  Ramses  II  by  reversing  the 
claim;  he  merely  states  that  the  king  of  Egypt  sent  a  croco¬ 
dile,  which  he  exhibited  to  his  people. 

Not  for  long  could  Tiglath  Pileser  enjoy  himself  on  the  blue 
Mediterranean,  hunting  whales  and  dreaming  of  a  conquest 
of  Egypt.  Aramaeans  were  pouring  like  a  flood  across  the 
Euphrates,  and  only  a  hurried  retreat  prevented  his  being  cut 
off.  Month  by  month,  even  in  the  intense  heat  which  reigned 
over  the  barren  steppes  in  summer,  the  records  show  him  turn¬ 
ing  this  way  and  that  to  attack  them,  and  ever  the  Aramaeans 
are  found  farther  north.  Harran  was  lost  and  the  road  to  the 
Mediterranean  was  closed.  He  crossed  from  Tadmar  of 
Amurru  and  Anat  of  Suhi  to  Rapiqu  of  Kar  Duniash.  The 
last  reference  shows  how  far  up  the  Euphrates  Babylonia  ex¬ 
tended;  in  the  first  we  are  tempted  to  find  the  Biblical  Tadmor 
and  the  Roman  Palmyra. 


66 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Already  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign,  the  Babylonian 
Marduk-nadin-ahe  had  fallen  upon  Ekallate,  “the  Palaces,” 
but  a  few  miles  south  of  Ashur,  and  carried  away  the  local  gods 
Adad  and  Shala  (1107).  Despite  this  disaster,  Tiglath  Pileser 
continued  to  call  himself  “King  of  the  Four  World  Regions,” 
which  should  imply  rule  of  some  portion  of  north  Babylonia, 
but  his  frontier  was  at  the  Lower  Zab  when  war  was  de¬ 
clared. 

Sufficient  time  had  been  allowed  Marduk-nadin-ahe  for 
consolidating  his  possessions  in  the  debatable  land,  yet  when 
Tiglath  Pileser  turned  from  the  bootless  wars  with  the  Ara¬ 
maeans  to  seek  an  easier  and  more  profitable  victory,  he  was 
not  prepared.  A  skirmish  between  the  chariotry  of  the  con¬ 
tending  parties  above  Zaban  was  favourable  to  the  Assyrians, 
but  the  next  year  they  decided  to  follow  the  west  bank  of  the 
Tigris  to  Dur  Kurigalzu,  where  they  met  their  first  resistance. 
This  overcome,  they  continued  south  to  Sippar,  to  Babylon, 
and  to  Opis.  Twice  Marduk-nadin-ahe  was  defeated,  and  the 
palaces  of  Babylon  were  burned. 

Such  conquests  need  no  interpretation.  All  the  Babylonian 
possessions  north  of  the  alluvium  were  lost,  and  all  the  impor¬ 
tant  cities  of  north  Babylonia  had  felt  the  hand  of  the  invader. 
Babylon  herself  might  hope  soon  to  be  freed,  but  her  imperial 
position  was  gone  forever. 

The  first  step  towards  an  efficient  imperial  organisation  was 
taken  by  Tiglath  Pileser.  It  was  still  an  empire  of  the  crud¬ 
est  type,  with  no  bond  of  union  other  than  a  common  master 
of  the  various  subject  kings,  and  his  title  is  “king  of  all 
princes,  lord  of  lords,  mighty  one,  king  of  kings,  who  hath 
ruled  the  peoples  and  hath  been  proclaimed  over  princes.” 
Provincial  organisation  was  confined  to  Assyria  proper. 

Its  theocratic  character  is  evident.  Ashur  and  the  great 
gods  command  that  he  should  extend  the  boundary  of  the 
land,  enemies  are  those  not  subject  to  the  lord  Ashur,  the 
conquered  are  numbered  with  those  subject  before  the  lord 
Ashur,  and  pay  his  tax  and  tribute.  On  complete  reduction 
of  a  land,  the  gods  are  carried  captive  to  Ashur;  when  kings 


Fig.  38.  ALTAR  IN  A  PIICENICTAN  TEMPLE  AT  81  DON 


TIGLATH  PILESER  I  AND  THE  NEW  WORLD  67 


are  set  free  they  are  forced  to  swear  the  oath  of  the  great  gods 
for  servanthood  forever,  and  a  captive  king  on  whom  Tiglath 
Pileser  has  mercy  is  sent  home  to  be  a  worshipper  of  the  great 
gods. 

Those  who  came  out  on  the  royal  advance  and  embraced 
the  royal  feet  were  bidden  to  give  hostages,  furnish  an  indem¬ 
nity,  and  promise  a  regular  yearly  tax,  to  be  paid  in  the  city 
of  Ashur  in  the  presence  of  the  king.  It  is  this  yearly  tribute, 
sharply  to  be  distinguished  from  the  extraordinary  contribu¬ 
tion  with  which  the  king  must  be  greeted  when  he  appears  in 
subject  territory  on  his  annual  expeditions,  which  gives  the 
first  hint  of  effective  imperial  control.  Through  the  personal 
knowledge  of  the  high  state  of  military  preparedness  and 
through  the  impression  the  glitter  of  wealth  must  make,  the 
client  princes  were  made  to  realise  that  revolt  was  suicidal.1 

The  decline  of  Assyrian  power  under  his  ancestors  had 
brought  about  decay  and  desertion.  Much  labour  was  de¬ 
manded  to  restore  palaces,  and  many  of  the  cities  were  no 
longer  protected  from  the  nomad  enemy  by  their  ruined  town 
walls.  The  first  building  taken  in  hand  was  the  “  Palace  of 
the  King  of  the  Four  World  Regions/7  which  was  completed  in 
the  fourth  year.  The  palace  has  left  few  traces,  but  there  are 
fragments  of  its  decoration;  in  particular  bulls  and  lions  in 
basalt.  Especially  to  be  noted  is  the  eye  for  a  basalt  bull  which 
was  fixed  with  an  iron  spike. 

Adad  was  the  greatest  of  the  west  Semitic  gods,  and  naturally 
held  a  high  place  in  early  Ashur.  He  occupied  the  site  alone 
in  the  days  of  Erishum,  but  when  Ashur  fell  under  the  rule  of 
Babylon,  the  sky-god  Anu,  a  comparatively  new  head  of  the 
pantheon,  became  “  father 7  7  of  Adad  and  was  given  an  equal 
share  in  the  shrine.  In  spite  of  his  very  name,  Shamshi  Adad 
I,  for  example,  honours  in  his  building  Anu  equally  with  Adad. 
Of  these  constructions,  we  have  a  stone  wall,  gypsum  with 
rubble  filling,  at  the  southeast  corner  of  the  sacred  area. 
The  later  plan  of  the  temple  was  due  to  Ashur-dan  I,  who  be¬ 
gan  the  rebuilding,  and  to  Ashur-resh-ishi  I,  rather  than  to 

1  Amer.  Pol.  Science  Rev.,  XII,  64  ff. 


68 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Tiglath  Pileser,  who  brought  the  task  to  completion  and  has 
given  us  the  literary  data  for  its  reconstruction. 

In  the  centre  of  the  northern  wall  the  curious  double  temple 
towers,  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high,  could  be  seen  far  to  the 
north.  The  main  building  material  was  adobe,  the  bricks 
somewhat  over  a  foot  square  and  baked  almost  to  the  hardness 
of  stone  by  the  intense  sun.  Rubble  and  sand  filled  the  ter¬ 
races,  the  lower  courses  and  the  comers  were  faced  with  lime¬ 
stone  or  gypsum.  The  usual  double  gate  on  the  southeast 
side  led  into  a  courtyard  of  some  size,  ninety-three  by  a  hun¬ 
dred  and  sixty  feet,  around  which  were  grouped  small  rooms 
in  the  thick  walls.  At  the  opposite  end  were  three  entrances, 
the  middle  one  leading  into  the  small  corridor  which  separated 
the  two  temples,  the  others  into  the  sacred  places  themselves. 
In  front  of  each  were  two  small  rooms  and  two  others  opened 
into  the  corridor;  the  shrine  itself  was  next  the  temple  tower 
with  a  niche  at  the  far  end  in  which  was  placed  the  life-sized 
cult  image.  How  splendid  these  must  have  appeared  may 
be  conjectured  from  the  discovery  of  Adad’s  trident  thunder¬ 
bolt,  a  wooden  core  over  which  was  laid  gold  of  unusual  fine¬ 
ness  and  of  a  coin  value  to-day  of  some  two  hundred  dollars. 

Tiglath  Pileser  increased  the  terraces,  raised  the  level  of 
the  rooms,  and  pushed  out  the  line  of  the  walls.  Close- 
grained  yellow  limestone,  in  blocks  five  feet  long,  was  added 
to  the  facing,  and  mason’s  marks  on  them,  made  with  bitumen 
and  including  the  swastika,  can  still  be  observed.  Slightly 
plano-convex  paving-blocks,  an  imitation  of  the  pre-Sargonid 
use  in  Babylonia,  were  laid  down,  and  sunburnt  bricks,  in  L 
shapes,  half-cylinders,  and  segments  of  circles,  still  more 
adorned  the  portals.1 

Nor  was  Tiglath  Pileser  without  due  regard  for  the  welfare 
of  the  country  as  a  whole.  The  water-wheels  in  all  Assyria  were 
repaired,  and  there  was  a  resultant  increase  in  the  taxes  paid 
in  kind  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  royal  treasury.  The 
horses,  cattle,  and  asses,  driven  away  on  the  various  raids, 
were  collected  together,  and  the  deer,  stags,  and  ibexes  taken 

1 W.  Andrae,  Der  Anu-Adad-T emyel ,  1909. 


TIGLATH  PILESER  I  AND  THE  NEW  WORLD  69 


in  the  chase  were  reared  for  sacrifices.  Cedars  and  other 
trees,  all  sorts  of  garden-truck,  were  carried  away  and  planted 
in  the  gardens  of  Assyria.  The  picture  is  idyllic. 

In  summing  up  his  reign,  Tiglath  Pileser  boasts:  “I  have 
made  good  the  condition  of  my  people;  in  peaceful  habita¬ 
tions  have  I  made  them  dwell.”  It  is  the  irony  of  fate  that 
to  us  Tiglath  Pileser  is  known  almost  exclusively  by  his  wars, 
while  the  later  history  was  to  show  that  conflict  and  decline 
were  to  be  the  destined  lot  of  his  people. 


CHAPTER  VII 


DARK  CENTURIES 

The  glories  of  Tiglath  Pileser  were  but  fleeting.  Before 
his  reign  was  closed,  there  were  signs  of  coming  trouble,  and 
if  from  the  succeeding  period  we  possess  no  annals,  we  may  as¬ 
sert  that  there  were  no  further  glories  to  unfold.  Perchance 
his  reign  was  ended  by  assassination,  for  he  was  not  followed 
by  a  legitimate  heir,  but  by  the  usurper  Saggal-apal-ekur  II 
(1102-1092).  A  son  of  Tiglath  Pileser,  Ashur-bel-kala,  finally 
succeeded  in  reclaiming  his  ancestral  heritage,  but  only  for  a 
time,  when  another  usurper,  Enlil-rabi,  appears.1 

In  Babylonia  the  son  of  Marduk-nadin-ahe,  named  Itti 
Marduk-balatu  (1097-1088),  had  been  forced  to  cede  his  place 
to  the  usurper  Marduk-shapik-zer-mati  (1088-1080),  who 
held  his  throne  only  by  a  personal  visit  ’  to  Assyria  to 
promise  dependence  on  the  north.  When  Ashur-bel-kala  was 
driven  from  home,  he  found  refuge  in  Babylonia,  where  the 
king  with  the  long  name  had  yielded  to  Adad-apal-iddina 
(1080-1058),  who  restored  the  line  of  Marduk-nadin-ahe. 
Babylonian  aid  was  purchased  by  the  marriage  of  Ashur-bel- 
kala  to  the  daughter  of  Adad-apal-iddina,  and  the  Assyrians 
are  so  careful  to  regale  us  with  the  rich  dowry  which  the  bride¬ 
groom  brought  home,  that  we  ask  in  suspicion  whether  they 
would  have  us  forget  gifts  presented  by  a  groom  to  a  father- 
in-law  who  had  become  his  suzerain. 

An  almost  life-size  figure  of  the  nude  goddess  is  the  earliest 
Assyrian  statue  in  the  round  we  can  exactly  date.  Although 
mutilated  by  the  loss  of  head,  hands,  and  feet,  the  propor¬ 
tions  are  good;  Ashur-bel-kala’s  artist  has  well  represented 
the  solid  though  not  overstout  bodies  of  the  women  of  Ashur. 
Ashur-bel-kala  found  his  last  resting-place  in  the  capital.  An 

1  For  period  covered  in  chapter,  cf.  JAOS.,  XXXVIII,  209  ff. 

70 


DARK  CENTURIES 


71 


arched  underground  passage  led  to  a  massive  stone  door  set 
in  stone  sockets.  Deep  under  the  south  wing  of  the  palace 
lay  the  vault,  unusually  large  and  solidly  constructed.  The 
floor  was  formed  of  asphalted  bricks,  above  which  was  a  layer 
of  basalt  slabs.  In  a  niche  was  a  lamp.  The  body  was 
placed  in  a  massive  coffin  of  basalt  with  cover,  the  only  orna¬ 
ment  of  which  was  the  royal  inscription.  An  unornamented 
coffin  of  limestone  probably  held  his  queen.1 

The  seventeen  years  (1092-1075)  of  interrupted  rule  by 
Ashur-bel-kala  were  followed  by  those  of  Eriba  Adad,  perhaps 
his  son.  A  half-century  after  the  death  of  his  father,  Shamshi 
Adad  IV,  a  second  son  of  Tiglath  Pileser,  ascended  the  throne. 

A  most  regrettable  failure  of  the  gods  properly  to  reward 
filial  piety  is  the  loss  from  the  record  of  the  name  of  the  one 
man  in  all  Assyrian  history  most  noted  for  his  care  in  pre¬ 
serving  the  memory  of  an  ancestor;  we  know  not  whether  it 
was  Shamshi  Adad  or  his  brother.  Among  the  restorations 
of  the  pious  unknown  were  the  palace  wall,  the  cemetery,  and 
the  great  northern  terrace.  The  ruined  city  moat  was  cleansed 
from  the  Gate  of  the  Metal  Worker  to  that  of  the  Tigris, 
and  the  fallen  doors  of  the  former  were  replaced  with  bronze 
valves.  The  city  wall  was  rebuilt  and  a  rampart  heaped 
outside  it.  Thirty  years  the  canal  dug  by  Ashur-dan  had 
been  abandoned,  now  it  was  reopened  and  orchards  planted 
in  its  vicinity.  The  quay  wall  of  the  Tigris  was  raised,  the 
palace  terrace  of  Tukulti  Urta  rebuilt. 

An  obelisk,  topped  with  two  sloping  steps  and  with  an  inset 
panel  in  the  upper  centre  of  one  side,  contains  the  narrative 
just  quoted.  On  the  left  stands  Tiglath  Pileser,  with  short, 
square-cut  beard,  and  with  heavy  hair  reaching  to  the  neck. 
He  is  clad  in  a  single  long  robe,  with  a  girdle  in  which  is  inserted 
a  dagger.  His  right  hand  is  outstretched,  his  left  holds  a  bow 
and  ropes  which  lead  to  the  nostrils  of  four  captives  who  lift 
their  hands  in  supplication.  The  heads  of  the  first  two  are 
covered  by  round  caps  with  hanging  points,  the  others  wear 
flat  round  hats.  All  have  pointed  beards.  Over  long,  cling- 
1  Strong,  JRAS.,  1892,  338;  Andrae,  MDOG.,  LIV,  37  ff. 


72 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


ing  robes  hangs  an  upper  garment  which  reaches  a  little  below 
the  waist.  In  the  field  above  are  symbols  of  the  five  great 
gods.  The  winged  disk  of  Ashur  plainly  shows  its  Egyptian 
origin;  from  it  extend  two  hands,  the  right  with  open  palm, 
the  left  presenting  the  bow  to  the  king.  Already  the  chief 
characteristics  of  Assyrian  relief  are  illustrated  in  this  first 
dated  example,  the  position  of  monarch  and  captive,  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  hair  and  drapery,  the  solid  figures,  the  emphasis  on 
muscular  development.1 

Shamshi  Adad  IV  was  followed  by  a  son,  Ashur-nasir-apal, 
the  first  of  the  name  (1049-1030).  Through  the  devotion  of 
a  later-day  copyist,  we  may  read  a  composition  which  he  ad¬ 
dressed  to  the  Ishtar  of  Nineveh,  “the  mother  of  wisdom,  the 
lady  of  majesty,  who  dwells  in  Emashmash,  the  goddess  who 
hath  made  brilliant  my  fame,  the  queen  of  the  gods,  into  whose 
hands  are  given  the  mandates  of  the  great  gods,  she  who  reigns 
over  all  kingdoms,  who  determines  decrees,  the  goddess  of 
the  universe.”  The  hymn  then  turns  to  the  matter  in  hand: 
“To  the  lady  of  heaven  and  earth  who  receives  prayers,  to 
her  who  hearkens  unto  pleading,  who  accepts  beseeching,  to 
the  merciful  goddess  who  loves  justice,  Ishtar,  to  whom  all 
that  are  confounded  bring  their  distress.” 

Having  thus  paved  the  way  for  the  specific  cry  for  help 
which  is  to  follow,  the  prayer  proceeds:  “The  afflictions  which 
I  behold,  before  thee  I  bewail;  to  my  words  full  of  sighing,  let 
thy  ears  be  directed.  To  my  afflicted  speech  let  thy  mind 
be  opened;  look  upon  me,  0  Lady,  that  through  thy  turning 
to  me  thy  servant’s  heart  may  become  strong.  Ashur-nasir- 
apal  am  I,  the  afflicted,  thy  servant,  humble  and  fearing  thy 
divinity,  provident  and  thy  favourite,  who  hath  established 
thy  offerings,  who  without  ceasing  offers  thy  sacrifices,  who 
is  eager  for  thy  festivals,  who  brings  abundance  upon  thy 
shrine,  who  makes  plentiful  the  wine,  the  desire  of  thy  heart, 
which  thou  lovest.  The  son  of  Shamshi  Adad,  who  adores 
the  great  gods,  I  was  begotten  in  the  midst  of  mountains 
which  none  knoweth,  I  was  without  understanding  and  to 

1  Budge-King,  Annals ,  LI. 


DARK  CENTURIES 


73 


thy  Ladyship  I  never  did  pray,  the  people  of  Assyria  did  not 
know  and  did  not  receive  thy  divinity.  But  thou,  0  Ishtar, 
mighty  princess  of  the  gods,  in  the  lifting  up  of  thine  eyes 
didst  teach  me  and  didst  desire  my  rule;  thou  didst  take  me 
from  out  of  the  mountains  and  didst  call  me  to  the  threshold 
of  the  peoples.  Thou  didst  preserve  for  me  the  sceptre  of  the 
temples  until  the  growing  old  of  mankind.  And  thou,  0 
Ishtar,  didst  magnify  my  name,  and  thou  hast  granted  to  the 
faithful  salvation  and  mercy.  Out  of  thy  mouth  came  forth 
the  command  to  renew  the  statues  of  the  gods  which  had  been 
burned.  The  temples  which  were  fallen  into  ruins  I  repaired, 
the  overthrown  gods  I  restored  and  brought  back  to  their 
places;  they  were  exalted,  thy  offerings  I  established  forever. 
I  caused  to  be  made  a  throne  of  boxwood,  a  divan  of  costly 
work,  affording  rest  to  thy  divinity,  whose  interior  was  lined 
with  gold,  with  precious  stones  of  the  mountains  I  adorned 
it.  I  set  it  up  in  Emashmash,  the  dwelling  of  its  splendour.” 

All  these  good  deeds  are  recited  by  Ashur-nasir-apal  to  make 
more  strange  his  need  for  complaint. 

“  In  what  have  I  done  thee  wrong  ?  Why  hast  thou  allotted 
me  disease,  boils,  and  pestilence?  As  one  who  doth  not 
honour  thy  divinity  am  I  tormented.  If  I  have  not  incurred 
sin  and  evil,  why  am  I  thus  afflicted?  To  my  very  founda¬ 
tions  am  I  unloosed ;  I  am  broken  to  pieces  and  rest  I  find  not. 
On  the  throne  of  my  kingdom  I  fasted,  and  to  the  feast  I  had 
prepared,  I  drew  not  nigh.  The  wine  of  the  temple  service 
has  been  changed  into  gall,  from  the  joyful  shout  I  am  with¬ 
held,  from  the  beauty  and  pleasure  of  life  am  I  debarred.  My 
eyes  are  sealed  and  I  cannot  see,  I  do  not  raise  them  above 
the  face  of  the  earth.  Until  when,  O  Lady,  shall  the  disease 
continue  without  cessation,  bringing  my  members  to  destruc¬ 
tion? 

“  Ashur-nasir-apal,  the  sore  afflicted,  who  is  in  fear  of  thee, 
who  grasps  in  supplication  the  staff  of  thy  divinity,  who  prays 
to  thy  Ladyship  am  I.  Look  upon  me  with  compassion,  and 
let  me  pray  to  thy  mightiness.  For  that  about  which  thou 
art  angry,  grant  me  forgiveness,  and  let  thy  heart  be  appeased; 


74 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


let  thy  heart  in  mercy  strengthen  me.  Make  thy  disease  come 
forth  and  restrain  my  sin;  let  tranquillity  for  me  be  ordered  by 
thy  mouth,  O  Lady.  To  the  Patesi,  thy  favourite,  who  varies 
not  in  his  devotion,  do  thou  grant  mercy  and  cut  off  his  afflic¬ 
tion.  Intercede  for  him  with  thy  Beloved,  the  father  of  the 
gods.  Then,  till  the  end  of  time,  shall  I  exalt  thy  Ladyship.”  1 

This  is  a  cry  from  the  depths  of  a  human  soul.  He  may  be 
simply  following  the  forms  set  down  by  the  pious  of  long  ago 
when  he  begs  relief  of  the  goddess,  and  declares  his  ignorance 
of  the  sin  which  has  brought  disease  upon  his  body;  the  details 
fit  only  his  own  case.  In  view  of  his  long  royal  ancestry,  his 
statement  that  he  was  begotten  in  the  midst  of  unknown  moun¬ 
tains  is  passing  strange  until  we  recollect  that  his  father  did 
not  come  to  the  throne  until  a  half-century  after  the  death  of 
the  grandfather,  and  that  his  uncle  did  not  immediately  suc¬ 
ceed  to  the  paternal  throne,  nor  was  he  able  to  hold  it  continu¬ 
ously.  Ashur-nasir-apal  must  have  been  born  in  one  of  these 
periods  of  exile. 

Still  more  puzzling  is  his  declaration  that  king  and  people 
alike  knew  not  the  goddess  until  she  taught  them  to  pray  to 
her  Ladyship.  The  temple  of  Ishtar  had,  for  centuries,  fur¬ 
nished  the  only  claim  to  distinction  for  Nineveh,  his  own  an¬ 
cestors  had  often  brought  their  offerings  to  her  shrine;  why 
then  was  a  revival  of  her  worship  demanded  ?  But  there  is 
nothing  surprising  in  the  story  of  divine  statues  which  had 
been  burned  or  thrown  down  from  their  places,  of  temples 
falling  to  ruin.  Whether  due  to  internal  quarrels  or  foreign 
invasion,  the  cry  of  the  sick  monarch  might  well  be  the  cry 
of  the  sick  land. 

The  darkest  days  of  Assyria  come  with  the  son  of  Ashur- 
nasir-apal  I,  Shalmaneser  II  (1030-1018),  and  with  Ashur- 
nirari  IY  (1018-1012).  These  two  monarchs  are  followed  by 
a  group  which  for  length  of  rule  and  for  ability  to  transmit 
the  succession  without  a  break  has  no  rival.  Two  centuries 
and  a  half  the  throne  passed  from  father  to  son,  from  the 
second  Ashur-rabi  (1012-995)  to  a  second  Ashur-resh-ishi 

1  Brunnow,  ZA.,  V,  66  ff.;  Jastrow,  Religion ,  II,  111  ff. 


DARK  CENTURIES 


75 


(995-966),  a  second  Tiglath  Pileser  (966-933),  another  Ashur- 
dan  (933-911),  the  second  Adad-nirari  (911-890),  the  second 
Tukulti  Urta  (890-885),  the  great  Ashur-nasir-apal,  counted 
the  second  of  the  name  (885-860),  the  third  Shalmaneser  (860- 
825),  the  fifth  Shamshi  Adad  (825-812),  the  third  Adad- 
nirari  (812-782),  the  fourth  Shalmaneser  (782-772)  and  Ashur- 
dan  III  (772-754);  Ashur-nirari  V  (754-746)  also  belongs  to 
the  family.1 

Ashur-rabi  began  his  reign  with  misfortune,  for  the  kings 
of  the  Aramaeans  deprived  him  of  the  cities  of  Pitru  and  Mut- 
kinu,  in  the  great  bend  of  the  Euphrates,  which  had  been 
colonised  by  Tiglath  Pileser  I.  Aroused  by  this  loss,  Ashur- 
rabi  forced  his  way  to  the  Mediterranean  and  erected  a  stele 
on  Mount  Atalur,  where  it  was  later  seen  by  Shalmaneser  III. 
Ashur-resh-ishi  II  and  Tiglath  Pileser  II  we  know  only  from 
the  inscription  of  Ashur-dan  II,  who  restored  the  Gate  of  the 
Metal  Worker;  the  decay  must  have  been  great  when  the 
most  important  defence  of  the  city  lay  in  ruins. 

Adad-nirari  II  begins  once  more  Assyrian  expansion.  His 
recently  recovered  annals  are  simple  enough,  without  a  hint 
of  striving  for  literary  effect,  but  his  conquests  deserve  atten¬ 
tion.  In  the  “beginning  of  his  reign”  he  invaded  the  lands  of 
the  Qumani,  made  captive  their  king  Iluia,  and  dragged  their 
gods  before  Ashur.  Kirhi  was  devastated  with  the  cities  on 
the  Shupuru  River  of  Mehri.  Across  the  Lower  Zab  he  in¬ 
vaded  Lulume,  Zamua,  and  Namri.  Uradri,  or  Urartu,  was 
subdued,  and  Kutmuh  was  made  Assyrian. 

Following  the  example  of  his  predecessors,  Adad-nirari 
pushed  on  to  Mount  Ialman,  the  last  range  of  hills  before  the 
Babylonian  plain  was  reached,  and  there  put  to  flight  Sham- 
ash-mudammiq  when  he  attempted  to  make  a  stand  in  the 
pass.  Arrapha  and  Lubdu,  lost  to  Babylonia,  were  recovered, 
the  whole  region  from  Lahiru  to  Sulum  was  made  Assyrian, 
the  land  of  the  city  of  Der  was  ravaged. 

Taking  advantage  of  this  defeat,  Nabu-shum-ishkun  I 
killed  the  discredited  monarch,  but  enjoyed  no  better  fortune, 
1  For  remainder  of  chapter,  cf.  JAOS.,  XXXVIII,  211  ff. 


76 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


for  he,  too,  suffered  a  humiliating  reverse,  and  saw  his  enemy 
make  himself  master  of  Bagdadu,  our  first  narrative  reference 
to  the  city  made  famous  by  the  Arabian  Nights.  Complete 
alliance  was  contracted  between  them,  and  each  married  the 
daughter  of  the  other. 

Four  times  Nairi  and  Kirhi  were  attacked;  the  land  of  Alzi 
was  destroyed  until  it  was  like  the  ruined  mounds  from  before 
the  flood.  The  nomad  Ahlame  and  Aramaeans  were  reduced, 
the  cities  they  had  taken  were  restored  to  Assyria. 

Six  expeditions  in  successive  years  and  a  later  seventh  were 
directed  against  the  land  of  Hani  Galbat.  Nur  Adad  of  Te- 
manna  collected  his  troops  and  set  his  line  of  battle  in  Pazi 
at  the  foot  of  Mount  Kashiari;  from  Pazi  to  Nasibina  he  was 
defeated.  By  the  third  year,  Mamli  had  become  ruler  of 
Temanna;  he  took  the  royal  feet,  and  his  palaces  were  reckoned 
to  Adad-nirari.  In  those  days  the  Assyrian  received  a  great 
and  a  small  animal  called  a  pagutu  from  the  land  of  the  son 
of  Adini,  our  first  contact  with  the  new  Aramaean  state  in  the 
bend  of  the  Euphrates.  By  the  fourth  year,  Muquru  had  be¬ 
come  king  of  Temanna;  he  forgot  the  oath  of  Ashur,  and  Adad- 
nirari  brought  back  territory  lost  since  the  reign  of  the  first 
Tiglath  Pileser.  The  sixth  expedition,  Nur  Adad  was  back  in 
Temanna  and  in  his  capital  Nasibina.  Seven  cities  round 
about  were  taken  by  Adad-nirari  and  placed  under  Ashur- 
dini-amur,  the  turtanu. 

Cities  lost  since  the  days  of  Tukulti  Urta  I  were  forced  by 
defeat  to  take  his  feet,  and  twice  he  went  to  the  aid  of  Kumme 
against  the  Kirhi,  who  had  burned  it.  Adad-nirari  made 
sacrifices  to  the  local  Adad  of  Kumme,  and  burned  in  return 
the  cities  of  the  Kirhi. 

He  then  crossed  the  Habur  River  and  passed  into  Guzana, 
where  Abisalamu,  son  of  Bahianu,  was  forced  to  pay  tribute. 
His  last  recorded  trip  was  down  the  Habur  to  the  Euphrates, 
and  the  cities,  Tabite,  Qatni,  Laqe,  Hindanu,  are  the  same 
conquered  in  more  detail  by  his  son  and  grandson.1 

With  the  accession  of  Adad-nirari  II  (911),  later  scribes  begin 

1  Schroeder,  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Assur,  II,  83  f.;  87. 


Fig.  39.  THE  GATE  TO  THE  KASHIARI.  (Mardin.) 


t 


DARK  CENTURIES 


77 


their  list  of  eponyms.  This  system,  by  which  each  year  was 
in  turn  named  from  a  high  official,  was  in  use  centuries  before 
his  day;  his  annals  have  made  clear  to  us  that  they  were  justi¬ 
fied  in  taking  his  reign  as  marking  an  era. 

The  first  narrated  expedition  of  Tukulti  Urta  II  (890-885)  is 
that  of  889  against  the  Nairi;  the  next,  the  son  of  Amme  Baal 
of  Zamani  begged  his  aid,  and  appeared  before  the  king  in 
Nineveh  with  family,  goods,  and  gods;  in  the  third,  a  campaign 
was  carried  on  in  the  eastern  mountains  while  the  king  remained 
at  home.  In  the  fourth,  Tukulti  Urta  took  the  field  in  person, 
and  the  loss  of  two  of  his  cities  forced  Amme  Baal  to  sue  for 
peace.  Commodious  villages  were  granted  him,  he  was  in¬ 
stalled  in  a  “ residence  of  peace,”  and  when  he  took  the  oath 
in  the  name  of  the  lord  Ashur,  he  was  told:  “If  you  furnish 
horses  to  my  body-guard,  Adad  the  god  who  loves  me  will  bless 
you  also.”  Two-thirds  of  the  booty  went  to  the  god,  the  other 
third  was  laid  up  in  the  palace.1 

The  expedition  had  begun  in  May;  so  quickly  was  its  object 
attained  that  in  October  Tukulti  Urta  undertook  another, 
against  the  Kirruri  region,  on  the  verge  of  the  Assyrian  hill 
country,  shut  off  from  the  world  by  snow-filled  passes  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  year.  In  the  Lullu  land  he  subdued  thirty 
villages,  where  he  must  negotiate  on  foot  mountains  that  the 
king  calls  emphatically  a  “  place  of  perdition,  which  the  eagle 
of  the  sky  could  not  penetrate  in  his  flying.”  The  fugitives 
found  safety  only  when  they  had  placed  the  Lower  Zab  behind 
them. 

In  the  last  year  of  his  reign  (885),  Tukulti  Urta  made  a  sud¬ 
den  dash  into  Babylonia.  His  detailed  itinerary  is  not  with¬ 
out  interest  to  the  casual  reader;  to  the  geographer  it  is  a 
precious  source  for  the  topography  of  the  middle  Euphrates 
country.  Ashur  was  left  in  the  midst  of  April.  The  first 
night,  camp  was  pitched  in  the  prairies;  the  next  day  the  army 
reached  the  Tartara,  the  dry  stream  bed  which  runs  south  from 
the  Singara  hills.  No  water  was  flowing,  but  a  little  digging 
disclosed  it  near  the  surface,  and  from  these  water-holes,  all 

1  Scheil,  Annalcs  de  Tukulti  Ninip  II,  1909. 


78 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


night  long,  the  army  drew  up  its  water  like  a  gardener.  Four 
days  they  followed  the  road  of  the  desert  where  there  was  no 
sweet  water,  only  nine  wild  bulls  for  the  king  to  slay.  Fresh 
water  was  found  at  the  “mouth”  of  the  Tartara,  where  it 
ended  in  a  swamp.  Another  waterless  stretch  led  them  to 
canals,  where  a  whole  day  and  night  was  spent  in  camp  securing 
the  precious  fluid.  The  banks  of  the  Tigris  were  reached  and 
the  army  was  in  Babylonia;  so  fertile  was  the  country  that 
the  soldiers  lost  their  way  amid  orchards  which  appeared  veri¬ 
table  forests. 

Sippar  marked  the  farthest  south  of  the  expedition;  from 
this  point  the  Assyrians  turned  west  to  the  Euphrates  and 
began  the  advance  up-stream.  Soon  they  were  opposite  Id, 
“the  fountainhead  of  bitumen,  the  place  of  gypsum,  where 
the  great  gods  speak.”  Travellers  from  the  days  of  Herodotus 
have  celebrated  the  wonders  of  Hit  and  of  its  petroleum  de¬ 
posits;  it  is  quite  in  the  nature  of  things  that  early  man  should 
make  it  the  seat  of  an  oracle. 

Continuing  up  the  Euphrates,  the  long  line  of  towns  unrolls. 
When  the  meadows  along  the  stream  were  reached,  a  day  and 
a  night  were  consumed  in  loading  up  with  a  supply  of  water, 
for  after  that  came  the  rocky  desert,  where  no  forage  could  be 
found.  Succeeding  camps  brought  the  invader  to  Anat,  the 
capital  of  Suhi  land. 

The  beautiful  island  town  was  not  appearing  for  the  first 
time  in  history.  Under  its  earlier  name  of  Hana,  it  is  fre¬ 
quently  mentioned  as  autonomous  in  the  days  of  the  first 
dynasty  of  Babylon,  and  when  Babylon  fell,  Marduk  and  his 
wife  were  carried  off  to  it.  Tiglath  Pileser  I  and  Adad-nirari 
II  claimed  its  conquest.  Some  time  during  the  Assyrian  de¬ 
cline,  an  independent  prince  named  Shamash-resh-usur  set  up 
his  stele.  Clad  in  a  simple  robe  whose  fringe  falls  to  his  ankles 
and  with  only  a  plain  fez  for  head-dress,  his  beard  is  square 
and  of  medium  length,  his  hair  reaches  his  shoulders,  a  sceptre 
is  in  his  left  hand,  his  right  is  raised  in  adoration,  but  with 
the  thumb  upright.  Behind  him  a  deity  lifts  his  hand  in 
blessing;  before  him  are  Adad  and  Ishtar.  The  god  holds 


Fig.  41.  KURDS  OF  ASIA  MINOR. 


Fig.  42.  A  MAN  OF  THE  Fig.  43.  PEASANT  GIRL  OF 

KASHIARI.  MESOPOTAMIA. 


DARK  CENTURIES 


79 


the  thunderbolt  in  either  hand,  and  in  addition  a  ring  in  his 
right;  the  goddess  carries  her  star  and  bow  in  her  right,  her 
left  is  extended  in  the  gesture  of  blessing.  All  three  deities 
are  elevated  above  their  worshipper  by  mountains,  each 
wears  an  elaborate  girdle,  a  skirt  with  five  flounces,  and  three 
overlapping  bosses  in  front. 

The  prince  rules  the  ancient  Mari  as  well  as  Suhi,  and  his 
inscription  is  dated  by  his  thirteenth  year  as  if  he  were  king. 
While  engaged  in  a  sacred  feast  at  Baqa,  he  tells  us,  Talbanish 
was  attacked  by  the  Tumanu  tribe;  three  hundred  and  fifty 
of  them  he  killed,  the  remainder  begged  for  mercy.  Tal¬ 
banish  was  planted  with  palm-trees,  for  this  is  the  northern 
limit  at  which  they  bear  fruit;  the  palace  garden  of  the  new 
city  was  made  the  abode  of  Adad  and  of  his  son,  of  his  wife 
Shala,  and  of  the  divine  judge.  The  Suhi  canal  had  become 
silted  up  by  age,  but  Shamash-resh-usur  summoned  many  of 
his  people,  dug  the  length  of  a  thousand  canes,  and  opened  the 
bridge  of  the  canal  gate  so  that  it  admitted  a  boat  thirty-seven 
feet  long  into  a  canal  thirty-three  feet  wide. 

His  most  curious  information  is  reserved  for  the  close.  Bees 
which  collect  honey  and  wax,  which  were  never  before  known 
in  Suhi,  were  brought  down  from  the  mountains  of  the  Habha 
people  and  were  placed  in  the  gardens  of  Gabbari-ibni.  He  and 
his  gardeners  understood  the  preparation  of  the  honey  and  also 
of  the  wax.  In  future  days  a  ruler  will  inquire  of  his  elders 
whether  it  is  indeed  true  that  Shamash-resh-usur  introduced 
bees  into  Suhi  land. 

At  this  time  the  prince  was  Ilu-ibni;  he  thought  it  wise  to 
meet  the  invader  with  gifts  of  precious  metals,  bricks  of  gold, 
a  throne  of  ivory,  tables  of  the  same.  Amme-alaba  of  Hindanu 
added  a  whole  talent  of  myrrh,  precious  aromatics,  camels, 
great  birds  which  may  perchance  be  ostriches.  So  close  did 
the  mountains  now  come  to  the  river  that  it  was  necessary  to 
cut  a  road  with  iron  axes.  As  the  Assyrians  were  encamped 
in  the  meadows,  Mudadu  of  Laqe  reached  them  with  food 
for  man  and  beast,  another  Aramaean  chief  presented  his  gifts 
at  noon,  a  third  at  nightfall.  No  attempt  to  follow  up  the 


80 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Euphrates  beyond  the  Habur  was  made,  for  the  state  of  Adini 
blocked  the  way.  Contributions  were  exacted  from  the  Ara- 
mseans  settled  along  the  Habur;  the  last  conquest  was  Nasi- 
bina.  This  is  the  last  time  Nasibina  appears  as  enemy  terri¬ 
tory;  thirty-two  years  later  it  heads  the  list  of  the  provinces. 

A  sudden  raid  into  the  land  of  the  Mushki  closes  the  story 
of  the  year’s  operations.  The  narrative  continues  with  the 
works  of  peace,  the  building  of  palaces,  the  making  of  irriga¬ 
tion  machines,  the  securing  of  food  for  the  people,  the  hunting 
exploits;  above  all,  the  reconstruction  of  the  great  wall  first 
built  by  Ashur-uballit.  The  account  was  composed  towards 
the  end  of  September,  885;  not  many  days  later  the  end  came, 
and  Ashur-nasir-apal,  his  son,  reigned  in  his  stead. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  CALCULATED  FRIGHTFULNESS  OF 
ASHUR-NASIR-APAL 

The  long  reign  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  II  (885-860)  marks 
another  epoch  in  our  knowledge  as  well  as  in  the  actual  history, 
for  once  more  we  have  annals  of  the  fullest  sort.1  The  two 
centuries  which  had  elapsed  since  the  death  of  Tiglath  Pileser 
I  had  seen  twelve  monarchs  on  the  throne,  less  than  a  score 
of  years  each.  The  age  of  each  successive  ruler,  therefore, 
tended  to  be  less  and  less  at  his  accession.  Ashur-nasir-apal 
must  have  been  a  decided  youth  when  his  father  died  after  a 
reign  of  but  six  years.  So  young  a  prince  might  be  expected 
to  possess  a  warlike  temper. 

The  march  of  Tukulti  Urta  had  shown  that  the  moment  was 
opportune  for  renewed  advance,  and  Assyria  possessed  once 
more  resources  in  men  and  in  wealth.  The  country  actually 
administered  from  the  capital  was  small  enough,  the  provinces 
of  Ashur,  Isana,  Nimit  Ishtar,  Kalhu,  Nineveh,  Kakzu,  Kut- 
muh,  so  that  Assyria  comprised  a  tract  seventy-five  miles  on 
the  side,  and  half  of  that  mountain  or  unirrigated  prairie. 

In  the  hands  of  an  efficient  ruler,  this  compact  country  could 
do  wonders.  A  thorough  overhauling  of  the  military  system 
had  been  carried  out  and  a  new  army  developed.  The  core 
still  remained  the  native  Assyrian  infantry,  but  the  chariots 
were  supplemented  by  a  cavalry  made  up  largely  of  allies,  a 
curious  anticipation  of  the  Roman  custom.  With  this  went 
the  art  of  besieging  cities  and  an  increase  in  the  use  of  battering- 
rams  and  of  similar  types  of  machines. 

So  far  as  her  neighbours  must  be  taken  into  consideration, 
there  was  no  cause  for  concern.  Babylon  was  too  strong  for 

1  The  records,  including  the  Monolith,  the  Kurkh  Stele,  and  the  Annals,  are 
published  Budge-King,  Annals,  I,  155  ff.  For  source  criticism,  cf.  Historiography , 
15  ff. ;  for  history  of  reign,  JAOS.,  XXXVIII,  217  ff. 

81 


82 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


safe  attack,  and  in  turn  was  unwilling  to  indulge  in  open  war. 
On  no  other  side  was  Assyria  threatened  by  a  first-class  power. 
It  is  true  that  there  was  constant  pressure  all  along  the  frontier, 
but  it  was  the  pressure  of  disunited  tribes,  which  could  be  no 
great  menace  to  a  strong  government,  though  any  relaxation 
of  vigilance  might  subject  the  state  to  grave  danger.  Already 
the  Indo-European  tribes  were  close  to  the  Assyrian  boundaries, 
and  the  petty  frontier  states  were  being  crushed  between  more- 
civilised  and  less-civilised  neighbours.  Farther  to  the  north¬ 
west  this  same  pressure  was  driving  the  Haldians  south, 
and  the  state  which  the  Assyrians  called  Urartu  and  the  He¬ 
brews  Ararat  was  being  welded  together  behind  the  masking 
line  of  the  loosely  organised  Nairi  tribes.  Before  the  end  of 
the  reign,  their  conquest  was  to  bring  Urartu  and  Assyria  face 
to  face. 

The  road  to  the  Euphrates  and  the  sea  was  blocked  by  the 
Aramaeans,  who,  since  the  days  of  Tiglath  Pileser  I,  had  swept 
over  the  whole  steppe.  They  were  rapidly  taking  over  the 
civilisation  of  the  peoples  they  had  subjugated,  and  were  al¬ 
ready  laying  the  foundation  for  that  supremacy  of  the  Ara¬ 
maean  language  and  customs  which  was  to  be  the  dominant 
factor  in  the  history  of  Mesopotamia  for  the  next  fifteen  hun¬ 
dred  years.  Beyond  the  Euphrates  lay  Syria,  still  largely 
Hittite  in  its  northern  portions,  but  with  the  current  of  Ara¬ 
maean  migration  already  running  strong.  All  these  disunited 
groups  offered  an  easy  victory  to  an  ambitious  king,  who  might 
well  hesitate  to  measure  his  strength  with  Babylon. 

A  considerable  part  of  the  year  885  had  been  taken  up  with 
the  expedition  of  Tukulti  Urta,  but  there  were  still  left  some 
months  fit  for  campaigning.  There  had  been  no  contest  for 
the  throne,  and  Ashur-nasir-apal  burned  to  accomplish  great 
exploits. 

For  the  first  time  in  Assyrian  history  the  bas-reliefs  come  to 
our  aid,  and  we  may  revivify  the  narrative  through  their  de¬ 
tails.  Ashur-nasir-apal  appears  in  his  chariot  ready  for  the 
march.  The  side  is  decorated  with  crossed  quivers  which 
contain  arrows,  a  small  bow,  and  the  iron  hatchet  so  often 


Fig.  44.  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  HUNTING  THE  LION. 
(Cast  at  the  University  of  Illinois.) 


— w»  as  m  fan  Bar  tte  flOHB.  Jis:  nr  rear  Itap  nr 

:•>:£—:  ;n-x :.  i.i :  —  i  -•  •• -m  j*  ne  : 

Tn  •  •  ■  _  ...."  -  •-  ■ 

imr_  Km  7e~vnn  m  “ r-  it^  25  i  ini-  - r'~'”  uni 


m:  ii 


a - 


Himei  ~~_l  i  :~ini 

'  -  I _ H  I  I"  lltr  1 

T  J-rr - -  Z— - —  — ~  J — 


m-n  i.i in  n-  zce- —  ~ i~  :^n:  in 
-  -  ~  '  -  m  mi  i_mj  n  *ier 

■  m  r  m;  m  -  >  n-nzn-  mcer  i 

in  t  v~  _  m  :<  ~  m  imam 
m  i  n  n  ti  z  -v~~- — • — ,  ■  ~ 


14’TT 


n  spzan  nnm 
; —  i  :  .  _  ne  _  . 

n±^  :-mni  i  ni  rnm  m 
fn  n  -rrmn  >iai:  n  n 


~  ~  rn  —  n  T^~  7  1  unmi  - 

ti_-  i_i  1  ' '~~~  ~  — '  nr-  ~  ~itt*  — .  '  —  —7  Zjf 


:mm~m  :i  m  101. 

r  ~  ~  \  ^  77"  -  77  -  -  7» 

it  mn  *  ~  ^ — 2  —i :  - 


7  -  —gwi:  xnm  nr  *  ^  m  m  m  n 

v - •  •  77f  zmn  r  m  xx  xn-*i 

i.  i;«:  mi  ne  duminn.  nzzm  m<:  n- 


renmi  nm  m  nm 

»  Hr*1  m '  ‘  ii _ x.  v  ‘*  .1 

m  ~r  :.n  «:ns  xx  n  2m- 
nmi  77  i  m  :n  i  ran; 

MRL 


I  -  MTTHP  mi  -«  r.l  1  XX  1. 
~  2IS1:  -I  1 —  Hr  iiTTm 

7 :  m  ~mn  :r> 


-1  rin  :e 


•  rtrT»« 


84 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


The  king  returns  in  triumph  and  at  ease  in  his  chariot,  his 
royal  standard  in  the  lead.  Before  the  successful  troops  are 
the  musicians  plucking  with  long  plectrum  the  nine-stringed 
harp  or  thrumming  with  bare  fingers  the  drum  hung  from  the 
neck.  In  ghastly  contrast  to  their  melodies  are  the  severed 
heads  of  the  slain  which  the  soldiers  are  carrying  to  be  counted. 
Our  last  memory  is  of  a  vulture  with  a  dripping  human  head 
in  its  claws.1 

Ashur-nasir-apal  launched  his  career  of  conquest  by  an  in¬ 
vasion  of  the  territory  directly  east  of  Assyria,  where  the  fron¬ 
tier  was  always  too  close  for  comfort.  Steep  mountains,  which 
were  not  prepared  for  the  progress  of  chariots  and  foot-sol¬ 
diers,  did  not  check  his  advance  to  the  land  of  Tumme.  He 
seized  its  chief  fortress,  Gubbe,  in  the  heart  of  the  hills,  but  its 
defenders  escaped  to  a  very  steep  mountain,  which  rose  like 
the  point  of  an  iron  dagger,  and  no  flying  bird  of  the  heavens 
could  reach  its  midst.  Like  the  nest  of  the  vulture  within  the 
mountain  was  set  their  stronghold,  into  which  none  of  the 
kings  his  ancestors  had  penetrated,  but  in  three  days  the  war¬ 
rior  overcame  the  mountain,  he  climbed  up  on  his  feet,  he  cast 
down  the  mountain,  he  destroyed  their  nest,  their  host  he 
shattered,  with  their  blood  he  dyed  the  mountains  like  crim¬ 
son  wool. 

None  of  the  sculptures  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  contains  labels 
which  permit  its  exact  location,  but  we  can  often  make  a 
shrewd  guess.  One  scene  certainly  belongs  in  this  general 
region.  In  the  preliminary  skirmish,  we  see  one  of  the  enemy 
falling  backward  from  his  chariot,  another  falling  forward 
over  the  front.  An  Assyrian  is  about  to  kill  a  prostrate  sol¬ 
dier  while  his  friend  attempts  to  drag  him  to  safety.  The 
city  is  in  a  wooded  country  and  its  outworks  extend  to  a 
small  stream ;  it  is  fortified  with  double  wall  and  battlemented 
towers,  and  the  defence  is  carried  on  behind  wicker  shields 
with  arrows  and  stones.  A  man  with  unstrung  bow  is  offer¬ 
ing  surrender,  and  the  pursuit  is  continued  through  the  woods, 
which  are  filled  with  decapitated  corpses. 

1  Budge,  Assyrian  Sculptures  in  the  British  Museum ,  1914. 


ermg-ram  is  destroying  the  walls.  (Cast  m  Metropolitan  Museum. 


THE  FRIGHTFULNESS  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  85 


The  army  next  turned  north  and  went  down  into  Kirruri, 
already  admittedly  under  Assyrian  influence,  and  ready  to 
furnish  horses  and  mules,  cattle  and  sheep,  bronze  vessels 
and  wine.  Before  the  end  of  the  reign,  it  seems  to  have  been 
made  a  province.  Horses  and  metals,  both  crude  and  worked, 
came  from  Gilzan  and  Hubushkia,  for  to-day  iron,  lead,  and 
copper  have  been  reported  in  large  quantities  in  the  hills  north¬ 
east  of  Assyria. 

By  the  Hudun  pass  Ashur-nasir-apal  entered  Kirhi,  west  of 
the  east  Tigris,  and  met  his  first  serious  resistance.  Names 
familiar  from  the  conquests  of  Tiglath  Pileser  I  are  encoun¬ 
tered.  Nishtun,  the  capital,  was  occupied,  and  the  inhabi¬ 
tants  fled  to  the  lofty  mountain  opposite.  Though  it  hung  like 
a  cloud  from  heaven,  the  Assyrians  flew  like  birds  and  con¬ 
quered  the  nest  on  the  rocks  of  the  mountain.  When  the 
fugitives  saw  the  devastation  of  their  villages,  they  descended 
and  promised  to  pay  in  future  their  dues.  Their  chief,  Bubu, 
was  carried  off  to  Arbela,  where  he  was  flayed  and  his  skin 
spread  on  the  wall  of  the  city. 

Spring  comes  late  in  the  countries  lying  directly  under  the 
Armenian  boundary  range,  and  Ashur-nasir-apal  did  not  lead 
out  his  troops  from  Nineveh  till  August.  Operations  were 
resumed  where  they  had  been  left  off  the  previous  winter,  and 
the  towns  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  and  between  the  east 
and  west  branches  of  the  Tigris  were  secured.  There  still 
remained  the  great  block  of  rough  volcanic  land  south  of  the 
west  Tigris ;  once  Kutmuh,  the  fairly  level  tract  north  and  east 
of  this,  was  made  Assyrian,  the  hill  country  could  be  isolated 
and  reduced  at  leisure.  The  Tigris  was  crossed,  and  the  states 
on  the  farther  bank  vied  with  the  Mushki  in  presenting  bronze 
vessels  and  wine. 

This  well-devised  plan  to  isolate  Kashiari  came  to  an  abrupt 
pause  when  information  was  received  that  the  Aramaeans  on 
the  lower  Habur  had  assumed  an  anti- Assyrian  attitude. 
Here,  on  a  strip  of  territory  which  to  our  own  day  is  considered 
the  most  beautiful  and  most  fertile  portion  open  to  the  nomad, 
had  grown  up  a  number  of  important  Aramaean  states.  One 


80 


HISTORY  OI<'  ASSYRIA 


of  these,  Stui  Dikiumi,  we  know  somewhat  from  excavation. 
The  settlement  was  but  six  feet  above  the  water’s  edge. 


Around  it  ran  mud-brick  walls  faced  by  cement,  good  baked 
bricks,  and  fragments  of  well-dressed  gypsum,  a  welcome  link 
between  the  gypsum  construction  of  Asia  Minor  and  that  of 
Crete.  Earlier  western  connections  are  indicated  by  scarabs 
bearing  the  names  of  the  Egyptian  Thutmose  III  and  Amen- 
hotep  III,  while  from  the  Assyrian  period  come  bricks  marked 
with  cuneiform  characters  in  yellow  or  white  outlines  on  a 
pale-green  ground,  terra-cotta  pine-cones  and  a  terra-cotta 
bull’s  head. 

The  sculptures,  in  particular,  show  a  similarity  to  the  As¬ 
syrian,  but  with  it  a  provincial  character  of  their  own.  At 
what  must  have  been  the  water-gate  of  the  palace  was  a  pair 
of  winged  bulls,  with  the  pavement  slab  between.  The  As¬ 
syrian  style  was  followed,  the  square-cut,  carefully  curled 
beard  and  mustache,  the  hair  to  nape  of  neck,  though  the 
wings  were  shorter,  the  legs  more  stumpy,  the  muscles  more 
exaggerated.  The  animal  had  double  ears,  human  ones  with 
elaborate  earrings,  and  above  them  bull’s  horns  on  a  flat  cap. 
The  large  flat  nose  and  thick,  overhanging  lips  give  a  distinctly 
negroid  expression  to  the  face.  A  lion  was  equally  Assyrian, 
even  to  the  fifth  leg.  From  the  interior  of  the  mound  came  a 
relief,  a  full-sized  male  figure  staring  out  at  us  with  square- 
cut  beard,  hair  massed  on  the  neck  and  bunched  out  on  either 
side,  with  much  the  same  effect  as  in  the  bulls.  A  round 
spiked  helmet  is  on  his  head,  a  flowing  robe  falls  to  his  ankles, 
armlets  and  bracelets  complete  the  costume.  The  right  arm 
swings  at  the  side  and  carries  a  dagger,  the  other  clasps  some¬ 


thing  to  his  breast. 

1  hanks  to  the  excavations,  we  know  best  Dikanni,  whose 
present  ruler  was  a  certain  Shahnanu-nunu-shar-ilani,  a  curi¬ 
ous  name,  “the  god  Shalman,  the  fish,  is  king  of  the  gods,” 
which  suggests  connection  with  the  sacred  fish  still  revered  in 
the  modern  Urfa.  The  most  important  city  of  the  region  in 
the  days  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  was  ilalupe,  not  far  from  the 
junction  of  the  I  labor  with  the  Euphrates.  Ilarnataia  had 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


163 


the  midst  of  her,  he  built  her  up  and  added  a  district  to  her, 
and  made  it  her  possession  and  made  it  his  land.  And  he 
filled  with  men  all  these  fortresses  on  every  side  and  he  built 
temples  in  all  his  land.  The  stele,  written  in  a  curious  mix¬ 
ture  of  Aramaic  and  Phoenician,  did  he  set  up  before  A1  Ur 
and  his  other  gods,  Shamash  and  Sahar,  and  the  gods  of  heaven 
and  earth,  and  upon  it  he  wrote  that  which  his  hands  had 
done.1 

A  year  after  the  Israelite  Jehoash  had  ascended  the  throne, 
the  Judean  Jehoash  was  followed  by  his  son  Amaziah  (799- 
782).  His  reign  began  with  a  great  success,  the  slaughter  of 
the  Edomites  in  the  Valley  of  Salt  and  the  capture  of  their 
rock-girt  metropolis  Sela.  The  youthful  victor  sent  a  message 
to  the  equally  youthful  Jehoash:  “Come,  let  us  look  each  other 
in  the  face.”  Jehoash  replied  with  the  fable  of  the  thistle  that 
asked  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  for  a  marriage  alliance.  Battle 
was  joined  at  Beth  Shemesh,  commanding  the  entrance  to  the 
valley  up  which  runs  now  the  railroad  to  Jerusalem;  Judah 
was  completely  defeated,  Amaziah  was  made  prisoner,  the 
wall  of  Jerusalem  was  broken  down  for  two  hundred  yards. 
Amaziah  was  permitted  to  continue  his  rule,  but  as  a  sub¬ 
ject. 

Bar  Hadad  had  been  supplanted  by  Mari,  and  on  him 
the  Assyrians  made  a  spectacular  assault.  Established  in  his 
palace,  Adad-nirari  received  an  enormous  indemnity  twenty- 
three  hundred  talents  of  silver  and  twenty  of  gold,  three  thou¬ 
sand  of  copper  and  five  thousand  of  iron,  cloths,  linen,  a  bed  of 
ivory,  a  litter  inlaid  with  the  same  precious  material,  full  com¬ 
pensation  for  the  many  defeats  suffered  by  his  predecessors  at 
the  hands  of  Damascus. 

A  sinister  hint  has  survived  as  to  the  means  employed  to 
bring  to  an  end  the  dynasties  of  Syria.  An  Aramaean  dedica¬ 
tion  to  Hadad  is  set  up  by  the  eunuch  Akrabu,  son  of  Gab- 
barud.  His  father  was  the  king  of  Hattina  who  had  opposed 
Shalmaneser  III,  and  he  had  been  saved  from  a  fearful  death 
when  an  end  was  made  to  his  father’s  state  only  because  he 
1  Pognon,  Ins.  semitiques,  II,  no.  86;  Torrcy,  JAOS.,  XXXV,  35o  ff. 


88 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  control  by  the  central  power,  and  Hulai,  their  governor, 
raised  the  standard  of  revolt  and  marched  against  another 
royal  city  named  Damdamusa.  Ashur-nasir-apal  began  his 
activities  with  the  erection  of  a  royal  stele,  fragments  of  which 
have  survived,  beside  those  of  Tiglath  Pileser  I  and  Tukulti 
Urta  II  at  the  source  of  the  Subnat  River.  While  there,  he 
received  the  wine  of  Izalla,  famous  from  the  days  of  the  great 
Nebuchadnezzar  to  those  of  Christianity.  The  same  route 
through  Kashiari  as  that  taken  by  Tiglath  Pileser  was  followed, 
and  Hulai  was  flayed  and  his  skin  exposed  at  Damdamusa. 
The  triple- walled  Tela  was  taken  by  storm,  and  the  expected 
atrocities  were  varied  only  by  deprivation  of  hands,  noses, 
eyes,  and  ears,  by  heaps  of  living  beside  the  heads,  by  the 
binding  of  heads  to  the  vines  in  the  city  gardens. 

Tushhan,  which  had  seceded  in  sympathy  with  Hulai, 
saw  a  palace  “for  the  dwelling  of  my  royalty7’  built  in  its 
gate,  and  the  city  became  the  capital  of  the  Nairi  province 
and  the  centre  of  operations  against  the  northern  peoples  for 
the  next  century.  A  memorial  tablet  was  inserted  in  the  re¬ 
constructed  city  walls.  A  stele  of  white  limestone  still  tells 
how  the  Assyrians  who  had  been  forced  to  flee  across  the  river 
to  Shupria  no  longer  suffered  want  and  hunger,  but  were 
brought  back  and  reoccupied  Tushhan,  which  was  made  a 
store  city  for  grain  and  chopped  straw. 

Further  efforts  to  restore  his  authority  in  the  level  country 
between  the  Kashiari  hills  and  the  Tigris  were  checked  by  the 
news  that  all  Zamua,  the  country  in  the  hills  due  east  of  Ashur, 
had  leagued  under  a  chief  with  the  Semitic  name  of  Nur  Adad. 
The  pass  of  Babite  had  been  closed  by  a  wall,  but  a  battle 
in  the  defile  opened  it.  Fortress  after  fortress  was  taken  by 
assault,  until  the  Assyrians  were  rewarded  with  the  sight  of 
Mount  Kinipa,  an  isolated  peak  almost  ten  thousand  feet  high, 
“like  the  point  of  an  iron  dagger.”  Ashur-nasir-apal  felt  a 
great  pride  in  being  the  first  Assyrian  king  to  behold  it,  for 
his  scholars  informed  him  that  this  was  indeed  the  Mount 
Nisir  on  which  the  Babylonian  Noah  was  supposed  to  have 
landed  after  the  deluge. 


Tusks  of  ivory  and  other  objects  of  value  are  represented  above.  (Cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 


THE  FRIGHTFULNESS  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  89 


From  Arakdi  as  centre,  a  series  of  expeditions  spread  their 
terror  over  all  the  neighbouring  lands.  The  province  of  Maza- 
mua  was  organised,  and  Arakdi  was  renamed  Tukulti  Ashur- 
asbat,  “In  the  strength  of  Ashur  I  have  taken  it.” 

A  second  campaign  was  needed  to  make  the  mountain  chiefs 
pay  their  tribute.  Its  leader  seems  to  have  been  the  crown 
prince  Shalmaneser.  The  beardless  youth  is  royally  dressed 
and  stands  in  a  chariot  of  royal  design.  The  hostile  leader, 
already  pierced  by  two  arrows,  grasps  the  bridle  of  the  chariot 
horses,  and  other  enemies  shoot  at  the  crown  prince  from  be¬ 
hind.  An  Assyrian  drives  his  sword  into  the  kneeling  enemy; 
a  second  beats  down  with  his  wicker  shield  a  mountaineer  who 
has  taken  refuge  on  a  hill.  Slinging  their  shields  on  their 
backs,  some  of  the  invaders  hold  their  companions’  horses, 
and  one  mounted  bowman  has  hung  a  head  from  the  harness 
of  his  mount.  The  crown  prince  abandoned  his  chariot  in 
the  rough  country  and  on  horseback  pursued  the  infantry. 
Then  the  line  of  communication  was  cut  by  the  enemy, 
and  it  was  necessary  for  the  army  to  construct  a  way 
through  the  difficult  mountains  with  iron  hatchets  and  bronze 
axes. 

Discouraged  by  this  failure,  the  Assyrians  next  turned  their 
attention  to  the  opposite  frontier,  and  in  June  of  880  the  steppes 
were  invaded.  Five  lions  were  killed  opposite  Maltena,  and 
some  of  the  finest  of  the  palace  reliefs  are  devoted  to  the  theme. 
The  helmeted  Assyrian  foot-soldiers  smite  short  sword  against 
small  rounded  shield  and  thus  act  as  beaters  up.  One  lion, 
with  enormously  exaggerated  claw  in  tail,  already  lies  mortally 
wounded  under  the  feet  of  the  prancing  chariot  horses;  the 
other  has  been  barbed  by  the  royal  arrows,  and  rises  with 
widely  distended  mouth,  a  magnificent  figure  as  he  clutches 
the  chariot  axle.  The  driver  with  flying  hair  hastens  on  his 
three  steeds,  but  the  king  scorns  escape  and,  bending  backward, 
with  drawn  bow,  is  ready  to  give  the  king  of  beasts  his  coup 
de  grace.  The  king  leans  on  his  bow  in  triumph,  his  cup 
raised  in  his  right  hand,  ready  to  pour  out  his  libations  over 
the  dead  lion.  Around  him  cluster  his  attendants  and  high 


90 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


officials,  while  bearded  men  pluck  the  nine-stringed  harp  to 
celebrate  his  might. 

The  army  then  turned  northeast  to  Kutmuh,  where  a  palace 
was  consecrated  at  Tille,  which  became  the  capital,  and  hence¬ 
forth  gave  its  name  to  the  extended  province.  A  wedge  of 
unconquered  territory  yet  remained,  the  Kashiari,  and  through 
this  the  Assyrians  forced  their  way,  storming  many  a  hamlet 
on  its  almost  inaccessible  height.  A  satisfactory  excuse  for 
intervention  in  Zamani  was  now  afforded.  Amme  Baal  by  his 
tribute  had  openly  acknowledged  Assyrian  tutelage,  and  to 
the  same  degree  had  made  himself  obnoxious  to  the  patriotic 
party  which  was  being  stirred  to  activity  by  the  rapidly  grow¬ 
ing  power  of  Urartu.  Amme  Baal  suffered  death  at  the 
hands  of  his  nobles,  and  Bur  Raman  took  his  place. 

The  site  of  Amedi,  near  the  great  bend  of  the  west  Tigris, 
was  magnificent — a  cliff  three  hundred  feet  above  the  broad 
river,  and  blocks  of  black  basalt  everywhere.  No  less  than 
four  walls  had  been  erected,  low  where  the  river  ran,  elsewhere 
with  beetling  towers.  The  king  lets  fly  his  arrows  against  the 
doomed  city,  and  his  protection  is  a  parasol !  Soldiers  covered 
with  scale  armour  from  neck  to  ankles  are  drawn  up  before 
the  city  in  pairs,  one  of  whom  shoots  against  it;  the  other, 
armed  with  a  dagger,  upholds  the  shield.  Men  falling  from 
the  walls  testify  to  the  accuracy  of  the  Assyrian  fire,  but  their 
main  reliance  is  in  their  siege-engines,  which  sometimes  permit 
the  capture  of  a  town  in  a  single  day.  One  hardy  Assyrian 
ascends  a  ladder;  others  dig  holes  with  knives  under  the  wall 
and  dispute  the  possession  of  the  treasure  hidden  in  its  cracks; 
again  some  take  their  place  in  the  high  movable  towers,  cov¬ 
ered  with  hides,  which  assure  them  an  equality  with  the  men 
on  the  ramparts.  Most  terrible  is  the  battering-ram,  which 
can  be  wheeled  up  to  the  very  foot,  and  when  its  projecting 
beam  with  its  head  of  iron  begins  to  batter  the  foundations, 
not  even  the  grappling-irons  let  down  by  the  defenders  can 
long  save  the  city.  For  the  besiegers  throw  their  whole  weight 
on  hooks  which  hold  the  ram  in  place,  and  when  the  besieged 
hurl  down  fire  the  men  in  the  towers  extinguish  it  with  water 


1  'U  \  Mil. Mill  Ul  III  MKI  I  IV  IM  I  \\U  V  II  M  N  M  \  i  H-Mll  H  I  l  HI  \  I IH  "I  "Ml 


THE  FRIGHTFULNESS  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  91 


poured  from  long  spouts.  The  palace  is  seen,  with  round 
openings  below  the  battlements,  and  the  captive  women  of 
the  harem,  their  dress  a  jacket  over  long  skirt  with  zigzag 
pattern  and  hem  at  bottom,  raise  hand  to  filleted  head  in 
lamentation. 

The  inventory  of  booty  has  an  interest  as  showing  what 
was  the  treasure  of  one  of  these  second-rate  Aramaean  kings. 
As  might  be  expected  from  a  people  so  close  to  the  desert  in 
ancestry,  first  came  the  horses,  chariots,  cattle,  and  sheep. 
Metals  were  fairly  common,  though  the  two  talents  of  silver 
as  against  the  same  of  gold  suggest  that  the  white  metal  was 
still  of  relatively  high  value;  the  three  hundred  talents  of 
iron  as  compared  with  the  hundred  of  lead  and  the  two  hundred 
of  bronze  excite  our  notice  because  of  the  unusually  high  ratio 
of  the  comparatively  new  metal.  That  the  Aramaeans  were 
already  settling  down  to  the  industrial  life  they  later  so  com¬ 
pletely  dominated  is  indicated  by  the  vessels,  pans,  bowls, 
and  caldrons  of  bronze,  the  couches  of  ivory  overlaid  with 
gold.  The  chief’s  sister  and  the  daughters  of  his  nobles  were 
entered  in  the  royal  harem,  and  an  additional  “aid”  was  ex¬ 
acted  under  the  pretence  of  the  dowry  demanded  for  so  august 
a  marriage. 

Bur  Raman  was  flayed  alive  and  his  skin  displayed  on  the 
city  wall  of  one  of  his  towns.  His  brother  Ilanu  took  his 
place,  and  a  tax  of  four  pounds  of  gold  and  twenty-six  of  silver, 
of  a  thousand  sheep  and  two  thousand  measures  of  barley, 
was  laid  upon  him.  Such  a  rate  was  far  from  oppressive. 
Fifteen  thousand  Ahlame  mercenaries,  who  had  been  in  the 
service  of  Amme  Baal,  were  incorporated  into  the  royal  army. 

Attacks  on  the  Aramaeans  settled  farther  south  marked  the 
year  879.  The  army  passed  down  the  Habur,  collecting  tribute 
as  it  went,  and  to  the  Euphrates,  where  another  prince  of 
Suhi  named  Shadudu  had  trusted  to  his  neighbour  of  Babylon, 
Nabu-apal-iddina.  The  three  thousand  soldiers  sent  under 
the  leadership  of  his  brother  Zabdanu  availed  as  little  as  did 
the  equally  valuable  aid  furnished  by  the  Babylonian  seer 
Bel-apal-iddina. 


92 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


An  unusually  vivid  picture  is  the  flight  of  Shadudu.  Unde¬ 
terred  by  his  all-enveloping  cloak,  he  has  seized  a  goat-skin, 
inflated  it,  and,  puffing  away  for  dear  life  through  the  orifice 
still  in  his  mouth,  is  being  rapidly  carried  down  the  stream. 
Behind  him  floats  his  son,  similarly  buoyed  up  by  a  skin,  and 
an  unfortunate  elder  who  has  been  wounded  by  an  arrow  must 
swim  for  his  life  without  even  this  frail  aid.  On  the  other 
shore  rises  the  towered  and  battlemented  town  of  Suru  with 
an  anxious  old  man  who  has  laid  aside  his  bow,  while,  with 
two  women,  he  watches  the  struggle.  Assyrian  archers  have 
lined  up  among  the  palms  and  olives  along  the  river-bluffs, 
and  from  their  shelter  aim  at  the  unfortunates  in  the  stream. 
It  is  consoling  to  learn  from  the  annals  that  they  all  escaped. 

The  next  recorded  campaign  was  in  the  same  territory,  but 
against  a  different  Suru,  that  of  Halupe.  Ships  were  con¬ 
structed  at  this  point,  and  the  army  drifted  down-stream  or 
followed  on  shore  till  the  narrows  of  the  Euphrates  were 
reached.  At  Haridi  the  river  was  crossed  in  skin  vessels, 
and  the  Assyrians  gave  battle  to  the  allied  Aramaean  tribes 
who  had  gathered  on  the  desert  side  of  the  stream.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  the  arithmetic  of  our  truthful  scribe,  six  thousand  five 
hundred  souls  were  slaughtered  out  of  a  total  of  six  thousand, 
leaving  a  considerable  remnant  to  die  of  thirst  in  the  Eu¬ 
phrates  desert.  Their  leader  was  forced  to  take  refuge  on  a 
steep  mountain,  for  two  days  the  Assyrians  marched  after 
him,  and  slaughtered  the  remainder  of  his  troops.  Pursuit 
was  continued  to  the  northern  narrows  of  the  Euphrates, 
where  for  a  third  time  it  was  necessary  to  slaughter  the  rem¬ 
nant  of  his  troops.  The  traditional  feline  had  barely  more 
lives  than  this  minus  five  hundred  enemy  soldiers. 

Pursuit  of  the  wild  auroch  is  mentioned  for  the  last  time 
in  history.  Fifty  were  killed  and  eight  taken  alive.  A  parallel 
to  the  lion-hunt  pictures  the  chariot  again  in  full  course,  but 
only  a  single  attendant  follows  with  an  extra  horse.  He  rides 
sidewise  on  a  richly  fringed  blanket  and  carries  tufted  spear 
and  bow  in  either  hand.  One  bull  has  fallen  under  the  horses, 
the  other  has  sprung  at  the  chariot.  The  king  seizes  the  beast 


'ast  at  the  University  oi  Illinois. 


THE  FRIGHTFULNESS  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  93 


by  a  huge  horn,  and  with  a  dagger  strikes  between  the  second 
and  third  vertebrae  and  into  the  spinal  cord. 

Direct  contact  was  now  established  with  Adini,  and  two 
guard  cities  were  established  on  its  borders,  at  the  upper 
narrows.  The  first  direct  attack  in  877  was  against  Kaprabi, 
the  “ Great  Rock,”  probably  Edessa,  for  “the  city  was  very 
strong,  like  a  cloud  it  hung  down  from  heaven.”  Protected 
by  round  shields  raised  high  by  his  body-guard,  the  king  began 
the  siege  with  his  arrows;  his  followers  wheeled  up  a  tower 
against  the  walls  of  solid  stone.  The  lower  parts  were  of 
wicker,  with  curved  projections  in  front,  beyond  which  ex¬ 
tended  the  ram.  Above  and  below  were  loopholes,  and  sol¬ 
diers  filled  the  top,  one  hurling  stones,  the  other  protecting 
both  with  his  shield.  When  resistance  was  finally  broken, 
the  general  in  charge  denoted  his  desire  for  surrender  by  his 
unstrung  bow  and  his  lifted  hand  with  thumbs  held  straight 
up  beside  the  fingers.  The  city  was  committed  to  the  flames, 
and  its  inhabitants  dragged  off  to  increase  the  population  of 
the  new  Assyrian  capital. 

Later  in  the  year,  Ashur-nasir-apal  set  forth  along  the  mer¬ 
cantile  route  known  as  the  Carchemish  road.  Adad-ime,  the 
new  ruler  of  Izalla,  was  ordered  to  provide  the  great  king  with 
chariots,  horse,  and  foot.  Already  the  foreign  cavalry  was 
taking  the  place  of  the  chariotry,  that  was  to  be  expected  on 
the  analogy  of  other  nations;  that  it  was  necessary  to  supple¬ 
ment  the  disappearing  native  infantry  with  “allied”  foot  was 
an  omen  of  portent  for  the  future. 

The  approach  of  the  Assyrian  army  forced  Ahuni  of  Adini 
to  come  to  terms.  Ashur-nasir-apal  descended  from  his 
chariot  and  received  his  rival  as  he  was  presented  by  the 
Assyrian  general  and  kissed  the  feet  of  his  conqueror.  Another 
chief,  with  decorated  fillet,  short,  rounded  beard,  girdle,  and 
robe  to  feet,  fared  less  well,  for  his  arms  were  tied  behind  his 
back,  and  the  soldier  who  held  the  rope  beat  him  on  the  head 
with  his  fist.  There  followed  one  of  Ahuni’s  daughters,  a  girl 
with  short  hair  and  of  a  sufficient  stoutness  to  reach  the  ori¬ 
ental  minimum  of  female  beauty.  The  golden  ring  and  buckle, 


94 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  golden  necklace  and  sword,  the  elephant  tusks  and  ivory 
thrones  overlaid  with  gold  and  silver,  indicate  his  wealth  and 
show  how  far  he  was  above  the  ordinary  ruler. 

The  winter  of  877-876  was  spent  in  quarters  in  Adini.  In 
the  spring,  while  the  Euphrates  was  still  in  flood,  the  army 
crossed.  Under  the  eyes  of  the  monarch  on  shore,  the  sol¬ 
diers  place  their  clothes  and  weapons  on  the  reed  boats,  in¬ 
flate  goat-skins,  and  launch  them  on  the  current.  With  much 
prying  and  heaving,  the  chariot  is  dismantled ;  with  much  use 
of  the  whip  in  the  hands  of  a  eunuch  official,  it  is  placed  on  a 
raft  laid  on  inflated  skins.  The  king  sits  bolt  upright  in  the 
chariot  and  clad  in  full  regalia,  even  to  the  fez-like  tiara. 
A  eunuch  of  his  staff  stands  behind  him,  two  boatmen,  nude 
save  for  the  breech-clout,  tow  the  raft  along  the  shore,  three 
more  paddle  energetically,  a  naked  fourth  guides  it  with  a 
longer  oar.  The  eunuch  in  the  bow  is  pointing  to  the  approach¬ 
ing  west  shore,  whence  men  rush  into  the  stream  and  drag 
out  the  raft  by  ropes  slung  over  their  backs. 

For  the  first  time  in  years,  an  Assyrian  force  was  in  north 
Syria.  Carchemish  was  even  more  important  than  in  the 
days  when  it  was  part  of  the  Hittite  empire ;  indeed,  its  ruler, 
Sangara,  had  assumed  for  himself  the  title  “King  of  the  Hit¬ 
tite  Land/’  The  enormous  wealth  accumulated  by  this  trad¬ 
ing  city  at  the  most  important  crossing  of  the  Euphrates  into 
Syria  is  indicated  by  the  tribute  Sangara  presented.  Twenty 
talents  of  silver,  a  hundred  of  bronze,  two  hundred  and  fifty  of 
iron,  couch,  buckle,  rings,  and  swords  of  gold,  jugs,  bowls,  a 
censer,  images  of  the  gods  in  bronze,  such  was  the  wealth  in 
metals.  Beds,  thrones,  and  tables  were  of  ebony,  which  must 
have  been  imported  clear  from  the  Sudan.  They  were  inlaid 
with  ivory,  in  the  fashion  so  common  in  the  East  to-day,  though 
now  the  elephant  has  disappeared  and  mother-of-pearl  has 
been  substituted.  Mantles  and  other  weaves  in  wool  testified 
to  a  rather  large  industrial  population. 

North  Syria  proper  formed  another  fragment  of  the  Hittite 
empire  which  still  retained  the  name  Hattina  and  still  used  the 
Hittite  writing.  Lubarna,  its  ruler,  received  Ashur-nasir-apal 


His  god  Ashur  hovers  above.  (Cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 


THE  FRIGHTFULNESS  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  95 


in  his  capital  of  Kunulua,  and  brought  tribute  as  rich  as  his 
predecessors.  Passing  the  Orontes  River,  the  great  sea  of  the 
Amorites,  the  Mediterranean,  was  reached  somewhere  about 
the  site  of  the  later  Laodicea. 

Further  advance  to  the  south  was  not  needed,  for  all  Phoe¬ 
nicia  hastened  to  send  him  gifts — Tyre,  where  there  reigned 
Ethbaal,  the  father-in-law  of  the  Israelitish  Ahab;  Sidon, 
which  once  gave  its  name  to  the  Phoenicians;  the  age-old 
Byblus,  famous  in  Egypt  for  its  ships  as  early  as  the  Early 
Empire,  for  its  connection  with  the  myth  of  Osiris  and  Isis, 
for  its  papyri  trade  which  made  our  sacred  book  called  the 
Bible;  Mahalata,  Maisa,  and  Kaisa,  the  three  towns  which 
were  to  amalgamate  into  the  Phoenician  Tripolis;  Amurru, 
the  ancient  city  which  had  given  its  name  to  the  “Westland,” 
to  the  Amorite  people,  and  to  the  sea  on  whose  shores  it  stood ; 
its  later  representative,  Arvad,  whose  inhabitants  had  moved 
out  to  their  island  home  after  Phoenician  control  of  the  sea  had 
made  it  safe  from  pirate  raids. 

Phoenician  merchants  saw  in  the  Assyrian  advance  not  the 
danger  of  conquest  but  the  opportunity  of  securing  valuable 
commercial  concessions  through  their  connection  with  what 
they  rightly  foresaw  was  to  be  the  coming  empire  of  the  Near 
East.  Their  contributions  are  of  extraordinary  interest,  for 
they  afford  our  earliest  detailed  information  regarding  the 
Phoenician  commerce.  Of  the  precious  metals,  we  miss  only 
iron;  their  cloths  must  have  included  the  famous  purple;  the 
box,  ebony,  and  ivory  spoke  of  their  trade.  Ashur-nasir-apal 
describes  a  perfect  menagerie.  Fifteen  mighty  lions  from  the 
mountains,  fifty  cubs  for  the  cages  in  the  Assyrian  palaces,  a 
great  and  a  little  dolphin,  wild  bulls,  elephants,  francolins, 
male  and  female  pagate,  wild  asses,  gazelles,  stags,  panthers, 
were  collected  in  the  zoological  gardens  of  Kalhu. 

The  campaign  of  the  year  876  marks  the  definite  close  of 
regular  warfare,  for  half  a  score  of  expeditions  had  weakened 
the  power  of  the  still  small  kingdom.  With  the  exception  of 
one  or  two  trips  for  building  material,  unbroken  peace  reigned 
until  867,  when  there  followed  one  more  campaign  of  the  old- 


96 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


fashioned  sort.  Ashur-nasir-apal  is  careful  not  to  refer  to 
Urartu  in  his  regular  annals,  and  a  casual  mention  of  it  in 
one  of  his  standard  inscriptions  is  an  inadvertence  of  the  scribe. 
But  we  cannot  doubt  that  an  expedition  which  hastily  started 
in  September  against  regions  soon  to  be  closed  by  the  snows 
was  an  attempt  to  check  Haldian  influence  in  the  north. 

Its  results  were  curiously  unimportant.  The  line  of  march 
was  to  Qummuh,  thence  up-stream  along  the  Euphrates,  past 
the  Adini  boundary,  into  Kirhi,  and  around  to  Zamani.  The 
army  stormed  Damdamusa  and  Parza  Nish  tun.  Amedi  was 
invested,  and  we  are  told  of  a  pile  of  heads  opposite  the  city 
gate,  of  captives  impaled  about  the  town,  of  plantations  cut 
down,  of  a  conflict  within  the  gate.  But  nowhere  are  we  told 
that  Amedi  was  captured,  and  it  seems  not  improbable  that 
Ashur-nasir-apal  abandoned  his  last  siege  in  disgrace. 

The  successes  of  this  monarch  may  as  easily  be  under¬ 
estimated  as  exaggerated.  He  took  up  his  task  when  only  a 
beginning  had  been  made  to  redeem  a  long  period  of  inactivity, 
during  which  virtually  all  Assyria’s  foreign  possessions  had 
been  lost.  He  took  advantage  of  the  upward  trend  of  Assyrian 
fortunes,  and  his  father  in  his  brief  five  years  had  laid  the 
foundations  for  a  career  of  conquest.  Granting  all  these  initial 
advantages,  Ashur-nasir-apal  used  them  well.  The  campaigns 
of  the  first  ten  years  were  arduous,  and  the  map  proves  that 
their  strategy  was  excellent. 

His  failure  to  attack  Babylon  left  his  glory  less  than  that 
of  many  of  his  predecessors,  but  he  was  wise  to  ignore  Baby¬ 
lonian  attempts  to  stir  up  disaffection  on  the  middle  Euphrates. 
He  did  not  penetrate  to  Lake  Van,  but  he  did  prevent  the  ad¬ 
vance  of  Haldia  south  of  the  mountains.  He  did  not  subdue 
completely  the  Kashiari  hills,  but  he  might  well  argue  that  so 
poor  a  region  was  not  worth  the  cost  of  conquest,  and  consti¬ 
tuted  no  great  danger  if  properly  garrisoned  along  its  border. 

His  most  serious  mistake  was  his  western  policy.  If  Assyria 
was  satisfied  to  be  a  mere  robber  principality,  plundering  where 
spoil  was  easiest  found,  it  might  be  considered  good  policy  to 
collect  such  booty  from  the  rich  Hittite  states  of  north  Syria 


Fig.  51.  ROCK-CUT  TOMB  MONUMENTS  AT  AMURRU.  Fig.  52.  KNIFE-EDGE  ROCK  IN  THE  KASHIARI,  WITH 

CASTLE  ABOVE  AND  INSCRIPTION  BELOW. 


THE  FRIGHTFULNESS  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  97 


or  the  still  richer  cities  of  Phoenicia,  and  hope  for  the  day  when 
the  conquest  of  Egypt,  equally  wealthy  and  defenceless,  would 
be  more  than  a  splendid  dream.  If  a  true  empire  were  in 
process  of  formation,  consolidation  of  the  lands  east  of  the 
Euphrates  was  absolutely  necessary  before  further  advance 
was  safe. 

Ashur-nasir-apal  was  not  without  some  appreciation  of  this 
necessity.  The  official  narratives  are  indeed  in  large  part 
recitals  of  war  and  rapine,  of  such  statements  as:  “  I  cut  off  their 
heads,  I  burned  them  with  fire,  a  pile  of  living  men  and  of 
heads  over  against  the  city  gate  I  set  up,  men  I  impaled  on 
stakes,  the  city  I  destroyed  and  devastated,  I  turned  it  into 
mounds  and  ruin  heaps,  the  young  men  and  maidens  in  the 
fire  I  burned/’  He  still  claims  to  be  “king  of  all  princes,  king 
of  kings,”  but  just  before  he  tells  us,  “in  the  lands  which  I 
have  subdued  I  have  appointed  governors,  service,  labour,  and 
serfdom  I  inflicted  upon  them.’ 

With  all  his  wars,  the  amount  of  territory  actually  added  to 
Assyria  was  small.  Kutmuh  had  been  separated  from  Nine¬ 
veh  and  made  a  separate  province  by  his  father.  He  tells 
us  himself  of  the  foundation  of  the  Tushhan  province,  and  its 
governor  does  appear  in  the  lists.  The  same  is  true  of  Amat, 
the  province  in  the  foot-hills  northeast  of  the  Triangle.  Kirruri, 
just  beyond,  appears  to  have  suffered  the  same  fate.  His 
attempt  to  form  a  province  in  Mazamua  ended  in  failure. 
The  Assyrian  Empire  was  still  to  be  formed. 


CHAPTER  IX 


IN  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  KING 

We  are  still  far  from  the  opportunities  of  the  later  empire, 
when  the  mass  of  letters  and  other  documents  gives  us  clear 
insight  into  court  life,  but  we  can  at  least  visit  the  palace  and 
call  upon  the  sculptures  to  restore  in  imagination  the  daily 
life  of  the  men  who  acknowledged  Ashur-nasir-apal  as  their 
lord.  For  he  was  no  mere  man  of  war;  he  delighted  as  much 
in  architecture,  and  a  main  object  of  his  military  enterprises 
was  the  securing  of  the  needful  wealth  to  construct  and  adorn 
his  new  buildings. 

His  earlier  years  were  spent  at  Ashur,  which  had  much  for 
which  to  thank  him.  The  city  moat  from  the  Gate  of  the 
Metal  Worker  to  the  Tigris  Gate,  the  entire  land  circuit  of 
the  city,  was  cleansed  of  the  earth  which  filled  it,  and  -the 
former  gate  was  given  higher  doors  of  wood,  covered  with  cop¬ 
per.  The  walls  were  renewed  in  every  part,  and  the  great  ter¬ 
race  of  the  New  Palace  of  Tukulti  Urta  I  as  well. 

The  modest  palace  he  erected  here  has  been  almost  com¬ 
pletely  levelled.  “The  Court  of  the  Nations ”  prepared  by 
Adad-nirari  I  formed  the  entrance,  and  the  orientation  was 
the  same,  a  little  to  the  north  of  east.  A  towered  gate  with 
reliefs  of  bulls  and  lions  opened  directly  into  the  upper  end 
of  the  broad  but  shallow  audience-chamber,  whose  wall  was 
decorated  with  various  inset  objects.  The  room  behind  was 
almost  as  broad;  the  others,  about  twenty  in  all,  were  small 
and  ranged  around  an  inner  court.  An  outer  room  had  a  deep 
well,  of  connected  lengths  of  terra-cotta  pipe,  from  which 
channels  carried  the  water  through  the  palace,  and  another 
large  room  on  the  inner  court  was  a  bath,  with  a  large  stone 
in  a  niche,  and  a  hole  in  the  centre  for  the  exit.  Perhaps  to 
him  belongs  an  alabaster  figure  of  double  human  size, 

OS 


IN  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  KING 


99 


Characteristic  of  the  most  energetic  rulers  was  their  regular 
refusal  to  rebuild  a  palace  in  a  former  capital,  their  insistence 
on  a  new  establishment  in  a  new  centre,  where  they  might  be 
free  from  the  memories  of  former  generations.  Ashur-nasir- 
apal  is  careful  to  mention  the  colonies  of  Shalmaneser  I  in 
the  north,  and  he  named  his  son  after  the  ancient  hero.  The 
fact  that  Kalhu  had  been  the  residence  of  his  patron  saint 
may  have  been  the  real  reason  why  he  chose  that  city  for  his 
new  capital. 

When  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  site,  it  was  a  mere 
mass  of  ruin  heaps.  Digging  down  a  hundred  and  twenty 
courses  to  the  water-level,  he  first  rebuilt  the  city  wall.  Within 
its  limits  arose  a  great  palace,  with  apartments  finished  in 
cedar  and  cypress,  juniper  and  ebony,  pistachio  and  tamarisk. 
In  the  gates  were  11  beasts  of  the  mountains  and  of  the  seas,” 
fashioned  of  white  limestone  and  alabaster.  Thrones  of  all 
precious  woods  and  covered  with  ivory  and  the  metals,  the 
spoil  of  the  lands,  were  set  up  within.  By  its  side  stood  the 
temple  of  Urta,  under  whose  special  protection  were  the  new 
structures.  A  canal  was  brought  from  the  Upper  Zab,  and 
along  its  course  could  be  seen  plantations  of  fruits. 

In  proof  of  these  statements,  we  have  the  excavations. 
We  know  the  ground  plan  of  the  palace,  can  enter  in  imagina¬ 
tion  the  various  halls,  even  of  the  harem;  above  all,  we  can 
study  at  our  leisure  the  sculptured  scenes  upon  the  walls. 
In  them  we  find  our  chief  source  for  the  culture  of  the  middle 
Assyrian  period,  and  can  write  from  them  a  full  chapter  in  the 
history  of  civilisation. 

Had  we  been  travellers  in  the  days  we  are  attempting  to 
bring  back,  we  should  have  seen  first  and  afar  off  the  temple 
tower.  As  we  approached,  we  should  have  discovered  that 
Kalhu  was  defended  by  the  Tigris  on  the  south  and  west,  and 
on  the  other  sides  by  moats  filled  with  water  brought  from  a 
stream  which  came  from  the  northwest.  Great  dams  prevented 
the  flooding  of  these  moats  when  the  river  was  high,  and  bridges 
led  across  the  Tigris  and  the  Upper  Zab.  Passing  a  gate  in 
the  massive  walls,  we  would  reach  the  temple  tower,  a  huge 


100 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


square  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  on  a  side,  jutting  out  from 
the  palace  platform.  The  stone  basement  was  twenty  feet 
high,  with  battlemented  top,  the  only  ornaments  the  shallow 
pilasters  and  the  small  circular  projection  to  the  north  that 
once  retained  the  statue  of  the  king.  Thus  the  massiveness 
of  the  huge  roughly  dressed  blocks,  destitute  of  mortar,  could 
be  felt  in  all  its  strength.  Above  rose  the  adobe  core,  for  the 
casing  of  burnt  bricks  is  the  work  of  his  son. 

A  paved  court  next  led  to  a  small  temple,  whose  main  en¬ 
trance  looked  east,  and  was  flanked  on  either  side  by  a  huge 
human-headed  lion,  sixteen  and  a  half  feet  high.  On  each 
was  the  divine  turban;  the  face  was  the  common  Assyrian  type, 
bearded  and  with  the  hair  curled  in  a  mass  upon  the  neck. 
Great  wings  with  a  triple  line  of  feathers  curved  over  their 
backs,  wavy  hair  covered  the  remainder  of  their  bodies,  around 
their  middle  was  a  ribbon  tied  with  a  tassel.  The  tail  had  the 
claw  of  the  Asiatic  Hon.  Legs  with  strongly  emphasised 
muscles  supported  them,  two  solidly  planted  feet  appeared  in 
front,  while  three  more  gave  the  impression  of  irresistible 
movement  when  seen  from  the  side.  Underneath  was  the 
Standard  inscription,  a  beautiful  example  of  calligraphy  when 
seen  once,  wearisome  when  encountered  sprawling  across  the 
sculptured  slabs  for  the  hundredth  time. 

Before  each  of  these  divine  guardians  of  the  gate  was  a 
square  altar.  By  their  sides  were  three  small  slabs,  one  above 
the  other;  the  upper  and  lower  presented  winged  human 
figures  in  low  relief,  the  middle  one  was  eagle-headed.  The 
winged  man  had  two  pairs  of  wings,  one  upraised,  the  other 
drooping ;  on  his  head  was  the  triple-horned  cap ;  a  fringed  cloak 
to  his  heels  covered  a  fringed  tunic  which  reached  only  to  his 
knees.  Around  his  middle  was  a  tasselled  girdle;  on  his  feet 
were  thonged  half-sandals.  His  braceleted  right  hand  was 
raised  towards  the  colossi  in  blessing,  his  left  grasped  the  short 
mace  with  fringed  end.  Paint  can  be  yet  perceived  on  the 
hair  and  beard,  the  eyes  and  the  sandals.  Between  were  the 
eagle-headed  figures,  with  huge  beaks,  lolling  red  tongues,  stiff 
high  crests,  their  dress  and  posture  like  that  of  their  more 


Fig.  53.  WINGED  GENIUS  FERTILISING  THE  SACRED  TREE  WITH 

PALM  SPATHE. 

(Auburn  Theological  Seminary.) 


< 


Map  4.  THE  CITY  OF  KALHU. 

Northwest  Palace”  (Ashur-nasir-  apal) ;  “Central  Palace”  (Shalmaneser  III  and  Tiglath  Pileser  III);  “Upper  Chambers”  (Adad-nirari  III); 

“Southwest  Palace  ”  (Esarhaddon) ;  “  Southeast  Edifice  ”  (Sin-shar-ishkun). 


102 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


human  companions,  save  that  their  weapon  was  a  knife 
struck  into  their  girdle;  their  right  hand  held  aloft  the  spathe 
which  was  to  fertilise  the  palm,  in  the  left  was  a  small  basket. 
Typically  Assyrian  as  this  scene  appears,  it  was  borrowed 
from  the  south,  for  the  palm  bears  no  fruit  so  far  north. 

This  was  the  main  entrance.  To  either  side  were  others, 
flanked  by  a  representation  of  the  battle  between  Marduk 
of  Babylon  and  Tiamat,  the  personified  Chaos.  Tiamat  has 
started  towards  the  entrance  of  the  temple,  but  has  halted 
to  snarl  back  at  the  approaching  Marduk.  His  mouthy 
with  its  huge  sharp  teeth,  is  wide  open,  his  long  ears  stand 
erect,  his  eyebrows  bristle.  His  body  is  feathered,  his  wings 
and  tail  are  those  of  a  bird,  but  his  fore  feet  are  the  paws  of 
a  lion  and  the  hind  feet  eagle’s  claws.  Marduk,  in  the  dress 
of  the  gods,  pursues  in  such  haste  that  one  foot  is  lifted  from 
the  ground.  His  sword  hangs  useless  from  the  shoulder-belt, 
in  each  hand  he  bears  against  him  the  thunderbolt,  the  double¬ 
headed  trident. 

On  the  walls  within  the  portals  were  two  huge  human  figures, 
garlanded  and  their  right  hands  raised  in  prayer,  in  their 
left  were  branches  ending  in  three  flowers,  plucked  from  the 
tree  of  life  for  the  blessing  of  the  king.  In  the  room  itself 
were  sculptured  figures  of  Ea,  the  fish-god.  He,  too,  raises  the 
fertilising  palm  spathe,  but  over  the  usual  costume  is  the  head 
and  body  of  a  scaly  fish,  with  tail  reaching  to  the  waist. 

Beyond  this  entrance,  in  a  corner  of  the  courtyard,  appeared 
the  figure  of  the  king.  On  a  stele  of  limestone,  within  an  arched 
frame  and  in  more  than  human  size,  Ashur-nasir-apal  stands 
out  in  high  relief.  On  his  head  is  the  fez-like  cap,  the  kinged 
ribbon  falls  to  the  shoulder,  his  raised  right  arm  is  bare  save 
for  the  tunic,  his  left  is  s*o  swathed  in  the  outer  garment  that 
it  appears  as  if  in  a  sling,  and  even  his  legs  are  covered.  His 
girdle  is  broad,  and  across  the  front  of  the  skirt  is  a  fringe. 
His  adornment  is  profuse,  a  bracelet  on  either  wrist,  a  huge 
ring  in  the  ear,  a  necklace  with  egg-and-dart  effect,  and  below 
this  hang  the  divine  symbols,  the  crescent,  the  trident,  the 
Maltese  cross,  and  the  encircled  star;  in  his  left  hand  he  bears 


IN  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  KING 


103 


the  mace,  in  his  girdle  the  three  poignards.  His  eye  is  large 
and  vacant,  his  nose  bulbous  and  down-hanging,  his  forehead 
low,  his  beard  short.  This  last  proves  that  he  was  indeed 
young  when  he  came  into  possession  of  the  royal  power,  and 


Fig.  56.  EMBROIDERY  ON  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL’S  DRESS. 


on  the  back  and  sides,  as  well  as  in  the  field  in  front,  is  inscribed 
the  earliest  form  of  his  annals.  He  looks  out  at  other  sacred 
emblems,  the  winged  globe,  the  crescent,  the  star,  the  two¬ 
pronged  fork,  the  horned  cap.  This  splendid  stele  stood  on  a 
long  pedestal,  and  before  it  was  a  low  triangular  altar  resting 
on  lion’s  feet  and  with  a  circular  hollowed  top.  We  are  in 


104 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  presence  of  the  central  fact  of  the  empire,  the  worship  of 
the  deified  ruler. 

Returning  to  the  main  entrance,  we  pass  through  portals 
guarded  by  human-headed  lions  and  into  a  vestibule  whose 
mud-brick  walls  were  once  covered  by  plaster  painted  with 
various  figures.  Another  portal  ornamented  with  winged 
beings  led  to  the  inner  shrine,  at  whose  farther  end  was  a  re¬ 
cess  paved  with  a  single  alabaster  slab,  no  less  than  twenty- 
one  by  sixteen  and  a  half  feet,  and  containing  the  annals  of 
the  reign.  The  cult  statues  of  Urta  and  of  his  associates  which 
once  were  worshipped  here  have  disappeared,  but  not  without 
traces.  Enamelled  ornaments  or  parts  of  the  body,  the  hair, 
and  beard,  black  marble  eyes  inlaid  with  ivory  and  with  eye¬ 
balls  of  bright-blue  enamel,  arms  and  legs  of  wood,  now  charred 
by  the  fire  in  which  the  gods  of  Assyria  met  their  doom,  are 
all  that  remain.  Small  blue  figurines  reproduce  Urta’s  consort, 
a  nude  woman  with  outstretched  arms  and  horned  and  battle- 
mented  crown.  Fragments  of  glazed  and  pictured  bricks,  of 
agate,  lapis-lazuli,  and  cornelian,  bits  of  glass,  beads,  and  cyl¬ 
inders,  one  of  which  is  Egyptian,  a  chalcedony  ointment-box 
or  a  casket  in  the  blue  glaze  borrowed  from  Egypt,  with  the 
holes  around  the  rim  still  showing  where  once  the  gold  was  in¬ 
laid  a  glazed  vase  carved  with  the  usual  scene  of  a  battle- 
mented  town  with  women  stretching  out  their  hands  in  sup¬ 
plication  and  a  captive  with  inverted  kettle  over  his  head, 
such  is  the  debris  from  which  we  must  attempt  the  impossible 
task  of  imagining  the  riches  of  the  temple  in  the  days  of  its 
greatest  glory. 

A  short  hundred  feet  to  the  east,  on  the  platform  edge,  we 
come  to  another  temple  whose  entrance  this  time  faced  the 
south.  Unlike  the  first,  this  portal  was  guarded  by  true  lions, 
eight  feet  high,  and  with  much  of  that  success  in  reproducing 
animal  figures  which  is  the  glory  of  Assyrian  art.  Aside  from 
the  realism  of  the  mouth  with  its  wide-open  jaws,  the  thick 
mane,  and  the  erect  hair,  the  work  is  rougher  and  gives  even 
more  of  the  sense  of  solidity.  This  temple  was  the  replica  of 
the  other,  in  its  inner  chamber,  its  huge  inscribed  block  of 


Fig.  57.  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  WITH  OFFERING  BOWL.  Fig.  58.  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL  WITH  ATTENDANT. 

(New  York  Historical  Society.)  (Bowdoin  College.) 


IN  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  KING 


105 


alabaster,  and  its  niche.  The  clew  to  its  purpose  is  discovered 
through  a  statue  found  in  the  room.  On  a  pedestal  of  reddish 
limestone,  above  the  great  inscribed  slab,  rises  a  figure  of  the 
king.  It  differs  from  the  other  examples  of  Kalhu  sculptures  in 
that  it  is  entirely  in  the  round.  The  ruler  is  here  little  more 
than  half  size  and  he  is  far  less  adorned.  His  head  is  bare, 
his  hair  is  plainly  treated,  and  ornaments  are  conspicuous  for 
their  absence.  His  long  dress  sweeps  the  ground,  permitting 
only  the  toes  to  be  seen.  In  his  left  hand  he  carries  the  fringed 
mace,  in  his  right  a  long  rounding  teethed  sickle,  the  descen¬ 
dant  of  the  boomerang  carried  by  the  Shumerian  princes. 
The  king  is  in  his  priestly  robes,  humble  before  his  god.  As  a 
work  of  art,  it  has  one  defect,  it  is  too  flat  viewed  from  the 
side.  Across  the  breast  is  an  inscription  from  the  middle  years 
of  his  reign,  and  indeed  his  beard  is  longer  and  his  figure  more 
mature. 

A  great  paved  open  space  was  closed  at  its  southern  end  by 
the  palace  fagade.  The  river  flowed  at  the  west,  and  to  it 
descended  two  broad  flights  of  steps.  The  entrance  to  the 
north  was  flanked  with  two  smaller  gateways,  guarded  by  the 
human-headed  lions.  That  to  the  west  was  bordered  by  a 
series  of  slabs  with  sculptures  of  unusual  interest.  The  cen¬ 
tral  figure  on  one  side  is  the  king  with  his  bow  in  his  left  hand 
and  the  two  arrows  in  his  right,  and  behind  him  stands  his 
eunuch  attendant  with  his  mace  and  a  reserve  bow  and  quiver. 
Opposite  is  his  turtanu  or  chancellor,  Ashur-iddina,  his  hands 
crossed  in  the  common  attitude  of  respect,  and  likewise  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  eunuch.  Over  these  figures,  themselves  eight 
feet  high,  towered  to  twice  the  height  a  gigantic  winged  genius 
with  the  fertilising  palm  spathe.  Across  the  open  passage¬ 
way  could  be  seen  a  second  turtanu  and  servant  and  then  a 
unique  group  of  dependents.  The  men’s  faces  are  painted 
black,  which  should  imply  that  they  are  negroes,  but  their 
bodies  are  short  and  stocky,  their  shoes  are  of  the  upturned 
fashion  we  have  come  to  associate  with  the  Hittites,  and  they 
wear  a  conical  head-dress  formed  by  winding  folds  of  the  tur¬ 
ban  or  a  simple  fillet.  Some  are  clad  in  long  sweeping  robes 


106 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


with  cape  effect,  others  with  a  tunic  reaching  only  to  the  knee, 
the  artistic  fringes  and  borders  break  the  monotony,  and 
bracelets,  armlets,  and  necklaces  afford  further  ornament. 
Hands  are  raised  in  supplication  by  some  groups,  some  carry 
trays  with  armlets,  bracelets,  and  earrings.  On  the  shoulder 


Fig.  59.  TRIBUTE  OF  MONKEYS. 


of  one  is  crouched  a  monkey,  an  arm  is  over  the  rope,  his  tiny 
hands  clutch  the  fillet  which  binds  his  master’s  hair.  A  second 
is  led  by  a  rope  but  rises  to  his  hind  legs  and  looks  regretfully 
backward.  Monkey  nature  was  never  more  faithfully  de¬ 
picted. 

Through  the  entrance  flanked  by  human-headed  bulls,  the 
visitor  came  into  the  lower  end  of  a  long,  narrow  hall,  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty-four  by  thirty- three  feet,  the  peculiar  form  of 
which  was  due  to  its  roofing,  a  barrel  vault.  The  walls  of  mud 


Fig.  60.  ENTRANCE  WITH  HUMAN-HEADED  BULLS,  PALACE  OF 

ASHUR-NASIR-APAL. 


Fig.  61.  CORNER  OF  ROOM  IN  PALACE  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL. 

Note  the  use  of  the  dowel  holes. 


IN  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  KING 


107 


brick  reach  to  fourteen  feet  in  height,  and  where  exposed  were 
covered  with  a  plaster  on  which  were  painted  complicated 
designs  in  brilliant  reds  and  blues.  Up  to  eight  feet,  the  walls 
were  panelled  with  the  slabs  of  gypseous  alabaster  on  which 
were  carved  the  scenes  already  described.  In  the  long  gallery 
of  art,  which  was  in  reality  the  throne-room,  historical  events 
predominated.  This  type  of  relief  was  in  two  stories,  with  a 
band  of  inscription  between.  Originally,  there  was  much 
colour,  especially  the  hair  and  beard,  the  eyes  and  the  sandals. 
Here  were  ranged  in  order  the  flight  of  Shadudu,  the  lion- 
hunt,  the  royal  camp,  the  transport  of  chariots  across  the  river. 
At  the  upper  end  of  the  room  stood  the  throne,  resting  on  a 
great  stepped  slab  of  alabaster  over  a  foundation  sacrifice  of 
animals  and  gold-leaf.  A  shallow  recess  behind  showed  in 
the  centre  the  sacred  tree,  a  highly  conventionalised  mass  of 
branches  tipped  with  floral  designs.  Above  floated  the  winged 
disk  within  which  appeared  Ashur.  On  either  side  stood 
the  royal  figure,  grasping  the  ceremonial  mace  in  his  left  hand, 
his  right  raised  in  adoration,  thumb  between  first  and  second 
fingers,  while  at  his  back  the  winged  being  held  aloft  the  fer¬ 
tilising  palm  spathe. 

A  somewhat  smaller  chamber  with  the  lone  figure  of  the  king, 
emblems  of  the  gods  on  his  breast  and  attended  by  pairs  of 
eagle-headed  demons,  leads  the  guest  to  the  banqueting-room 
with  its  magnificent  series  of  reliefs.  Again  we  behold  the 
richly  clad  figure  of  the  monarch,  this  time  seated  on  his  throne, 
if  we  may  apply  that  name  to  what  is,  in  spite  of  its  rich  decora¬ 
tion,  little  more  than  a  couch.  There  is  no  back,  but  a  cushion 
adds  somewhat  to  its  comfort,  bronze  rams’  heads  decorate 
the  corners  of  the  seat,  double  reversed  volutes  the  frame. 
The  royal  feet  rest  on  a  footstool  supported  by  lion’s  claws. 
Ashur-nasir-apal  gazes  at  the  uplifted  bowl  of  wine  with  a 
pleasure  which  the  artist  delights  to  depict.  In  front  of  him 
stands  a  eunuch,  a  ram-headed  fly-flapper  in  one  hand,  a  long 
ram-headed  handle  in  the  other,  and  over  his  shoulder  the  same 
immense  fringed  napkin  which  to-day  is  presented  the  guest 
after  he  has  eaten  and  washed  his  hands.  Behind  is  another 


108 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


eunuch  with  upraised  fly-flapper  and  the  royal  bow,  quiver, 
and  sword,  followed  by  a  second  with  the  same  furniture, 
save  that  the  fly-flapper  is  replaced  by  the  thonged  staff  with 
the  disked  star  at  the  opposite  end.  On  both  sides,  the  scene 
is  concluded  by  winged  creatures  bearing  the  now  well-known 
palm  spathe.  Elsewhere  the  king  is  to  be  seen  leaning  on  his 
bow,  holding  in  his  uplifted  hand  the  arrows  or  a  bowl  of  wine, 
or  worshipping  his  gods  with  raised  hand  and  firmly  held 
twig  with  the  triple-flowered  branch. 

The  remainder  of  the  great  structure  had  little  to  offer. 
Everywhere  was  irregularity,  for  no  attempt  was  made  to 
balance  rooms  and  courts.  The  other  sides  of  the  great  court 
were  surrounded  by  rooms  of  mud  brick,  but  they  are  rarely 
painted.  Sometimes  they  are  faced  with  slabs  of  inferior 
design  or  containing  the  simple  repetition  of  the  standard 
inscriptions,  but  gradually  they  tail  off  to  the  servant’s  quar¬ 
ters.1  Thus  Ashur-nasir-apal  showed  his  love  for  Kalhu;  but 
he  was  buried  in  Ashur. 

Save  for  Ashur-nasir-apal  himself,  the  men  who  walked  these 
courts  must  remain  nameless  for  us.  Our  only  recourse  is 
the  long  list  of  officials  who  year  by  year  gave  their  names  to 
date  events.  In  his  second  full  year,  Ashur-nasir-apal  fol¬ 
lowed  the  normal  custom  and  held  the  eponym  office  in  per¬ 
son.  He  was  succeeded  in  this  by  Ashur-iddina,  who  should 
by  the  same  rule  be  the  turtanu  whose  majestic  figure  faced 
the  king  on  the  palace  walls.  In  the  men  who  follow,  Shimutti- 
aku,  Sha  Nabu-damqa,  and  Dagan-bel-nasir,  we  have  the 
highest  court  officials,  who  must  be  represented  in  the  eunuch 
attendants  of  the  king.  In  no  case  are  the  officials  those  who 
held  similar  rank  under  his  predecessors;  the  young  king  was 
a  man  of  strong  individuality,  and  it  is  manifest  that  he  fol¬ 
lowed  not  the  advisers  of  his  father. 

Fate  was  kind  to  Ashur-nasir-apal  in  that  he  was  not  en¬ 
tirely  forgotten  by  later  peoples,  but  this  was  by  no  means  an 
unmingled  good  fortune,  for  he  owed  it  to  confusion  with  the 

1  Layard,  Nineveh  and  its  Remains ,  I,  70  ff.;  117  ff.;  271  ff.;  Nineveh  and  Babylon , 
123  ff.;  348  ff.;  Budge,  Assyrian  Sculptures. 


IN  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  KING 


109 


Ashur-bani-apal  whose  name  was  so  familiar  to  the  Greeks 
as  Sardanapallus.  The  earlier  Greeks  knew  him  best;  Hel- 
lanicus,  one  of  the  first  Greek  historians,  in  his  History  of  the 
Persians ,  declared  that  there  were  two  monarchs  of  the  name, 
and  the  much-maligned  Ctesias  approximated  his  date  with 
startling  accuracy.  The  three  hundred  years  before  Cyrus 
put  an  end  to  the  Median  power,  round  number  as  it  is,  brings 
his  death  to  850,  barely  ten  years  too  late.  But  one  may  be 
permitted  to  imagine  the  sensations  of  Ashur-nasir-apal 
could  he  learn  that  for  so  many  millennia  he  was  to  be  re¬ 
membered  only  as  an  unwarlike  and  effeminate  prince ! 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 

Shalmaneser  III  was  no  longer  a  young  man  when  he  as¬ 
cended  the  throne  in  860.  His  father  had  reigned  no  less  than 
twenty-five  years,  and  he  himself  owned  a  son  already  old 
enough  to  accompany  him  on  distant  journeys.  His  first 
step  was  to  make  a  complete  sweep  of  the  palace  officials,  who 
were  replaced  with  men  nearer  his  own  age.  Ashur-bel-ukin 
was  appointed  turtanu,  and  Ashur-bania  became  the  chief  cel¬ 
larer.  Abi-ina-ekalli-lilbur,  whose  name,  “May  my  father 
grow  old  in  the  palace,”  indicated  a  hereditary  position,  very 
appropriately  was  chosen  chamberlain  of  the  palace.  Not  one 
of  the  men  who  surrounded  the  person  of  the  king  or  ruled  in 
the  provinces  had  previously  held  office  high  enough  to  be 
entered  in  the  eponym  lists. 

Thanks  to  the  efforts  of  his  father,  the  foreign  situation  was 
by  no  means  threatening ;  rather  it  offered  encouraging  oppor¬ 
tunities  for  war  if  the  new  king  cherished  such  ambitions. 
During  the  entire  quarter-century  peace  with  Babylonia  had 
never  been  formally  broken.  The  Aramaean  invasion  had  been 
brought  to  a  standstill,  and  the  Median  tribes  just  appearing 
on  the  eastern  sky-line  threatened  no  danger  as  yet.  Syria 
promised  much  booty  at  little  cost.  The  brief  glory  of  the 
Hebrews  under  David  and  Solomon  had  disappeared  with  the 
disruption  into  Israel  and  Judah  (938),  while  the  invasion  of 
Palestine  by  the  Egyptian  Shishak  a  few  years  later  had  not 
been  followed  up  by  his  weak  successors  of  the  Libyan  twenty- 
second  dynasty. 

On  the  north  alone  was  cause  for  concern.  Behind  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  Armenian  mountains,  a  formidable  power  was 
developing.  The  natives  used  the  name  Haldians  for  them¬ 
selves  and  Biaina  for  the  land;  the  Assyrians  called  their 

110 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 


111 


country  Urartu,  whence  the  Hebrews  derived  the  form  Ararat, 
which,  in  their  tradition,  they  made  the  region  where  the  ark 
of  Noah  landed.1  A  reluctant  notice  had  already  been  forced 
from  the  scribes  of  Ashur-nasir-apal ;  indeed,  the  last  recorded 
campaign  of  his  reign  had  been  necessitated  by  the  growing  in¬ 
fluence  of  that  state,  and  the  failure  of  the  official  historians  to 
mention  the  part  played  by  Urartu  was  simply  confession  of 
failure  to  win  back  the  lost  laurels. 

Nor  did  his  son  dare  a  direct  attack  on  Haldia  at  first.  In 
the  very  beginning  of  his  accession  year,  for  he  had  been  en¬ 
throned  early,  Shalmaneser  collected  his  foot-soldiers  and  his 
chariots  and  entered  the  defiles  of  Simesi  land,  the  rough  Tiyari 
region  where  almost  to  our  own  day  the  Christian  mountaineers 
preserved  a  hardly  won  independence.  No  opposition  had  been 
previously  encountered,  mute  evidence  that  the  wars  of  his 
father  on  this  frontier  had  not  been  without  result,  that  the 
Assyrian  domain  had  been  extended  to  include  the  country  to 
the  immediate  northeast  of  Nineveh.2 

The  royal  annalists  furnish  a  more  or  less  coherent  narrative; 
for  the  life-giving  details  we  turn  to  the  scenes  represented  on 
the  bronze  bands  of  a  palace  gate.  It  is  here  we  behold  the 
Assyrian  army  in  its  full  array,  the  heavy  and  light  infantry, 
regularly  associated  in  pairs,  and  clad  in  helmet  and  short 
cloak.  The  light-armed  have  a  sword  on  the  left  side,  a  small 
round  shield  is  carried  on  the  left  arm  and  a  javelin  in  the 
right  hand;  the  heavy-armed  use  spear,  bow,  and  quiver. 
The  cavalry  bear  sword  and  javelin,  bow  and  quiver,  ride  bare- 
back  with  hunched-up  knees,  hold  the  reins  in  their  left  hand, 
and  each  possesses  in  addition  a  led  horse. 

The  first  acquisition  of  the  reign  was  Aridi,  commanding  the 
Upper  Zab.  The  scene  of  plunder,  the  pillar  of  heads,  the 
holocaust  of  youths  and  maidens,  indicated  that  the  new  king 
was  to  be  no  less  harsh  than  his  terrible  father  in  repressing 

1  Gen.  8  :  4;  Isaiah  37:38;  II  Kings  19  :  37;  Jer.  51 :  27. 

2  Detailed  narrative  of  reign,  JAOS.,  XLI,  345  ff.;  AJSL.,  XXXVII,  217  ff.; 
sources,  N.  Rasmussen,  Salmanasser  den  II’s  Indskriften ,  1907;  gate  reliefs, 
Pinches,  Bronze  Ornaments  of  the  Palace  Gates  of  Balawat ,  1880;  King,  Bronze 
Relief s  from  the  Gates  of  Shalmaneser ,  1915;  discussion,  Billerbeck,  BA.,  VI,  1  ff. 


112 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


disorder.  The  result  was  seen  when  all  the  chiefs  from  whom 
Ashur-nasir-apal  had  exacted  tribute  appeared  before  his  son 
to  make  trial  of  his  clemency. 

Climbing  out  of  the  Zab  valley,  Shalmaneser  descended  into 
Hubushkia  by  a  mountain  pass  and  over  hills  which  reached  to 
heaven  like  the  point  of  an  iron  dagger,  where  a  passage  for 
the  chariots  could  be  made  only  by  much  labour  on  the  part 
of  the  pioneers.  The  capital  of  the  same  name  was  soon  a 
smoking  ruin,  and  its  Nairi  princes  begged  the  royal  pardon. 
The  Haldian  border  was  reached  at  Sugania,  a  tiny  fortress 
perched  on  a  high  rock  at  the  junction  of  two  affluents  of  the 
upper  Tigris.  Around  the  arched  bridge  it  commanded,  the 
Assyrians  constructed  a  circular  camp,  with  a  gate  at  either 
exit  of  the  road.  The  king  set  forth  in  his  chariot,  attended 
by  others  in  which  were  carried  the  standards.  Arrived  at 
the  doomed  city,  he  dismounted  and,  still  Surrounded  by  his 
body-guard,  shot  his  arrows  against  the  fortress.  The  main 
attack  was  launched  by  archers,  but  sappers,  protected  by  long 
leather  robes,  were  employed  to  loosen  the  stones  in  the  walls, 
and  other  soldiers  attempted  an  assault  with  ladders.  The 
natives  resisted  desperately  with  bow  and  spear  until  the  houses 
were  fired,  when  they  abandoned  the  struggle.  Opposite  the 
town,  a  pillar  of  heads  was  erected,  and  the  survivors,  naked, 
save  for  the  peculiar  “  liberty  caps”  and  up  tilted  shoes,  their 
necks  bound  to  a  yoke  with  a  long  rope  and  their  hands  tied 
behind  their  backs,  were  dragged  before  the  official  who  stood, 
club  of  office  in  hand,  to  receive  them. 

Operations  recommenced  with  a  skirmish  in  the  open.  The 
king  stepped  down  from  his  chariot,  the  standards  remained. 
In  marked  contrast  to  the  stalwart  Assyrians  were  the  little 
Haldians,  clad  in  scanty  robes  or  entirely  nude,  armed  with 
long  or  short  lance  and  defended  by  the  small  round  shield  and 
greaves.  In  their  formation,  pairs  of  archers  and  shield¬ 
bearing  lancers,  they  had  followed  the  Assyrian  system. 
Fourteen  of  the  surrounding  villages  went  up  in  smoke,  the 
men  were  impaled  on  stakes  set  in  the  wall,  the  severed  heads 
were  hung  in  the  gates.  The  invaders  cut  down  the  palm- 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 


113 


trees,  surprising  so  far  north  until  we  remember  that  to-day 
they  still  flourish  fruitless  on  the  warm  shores  of  Lake  Van, 
and  captive  horses  recall  to  our  minds  that  Armenia  has  always 
been  famous  for  the  fineness  of  its  breeds.  The  strangest 
trophy  was  a  rough  platform  on  wheels,  so  ponderous  that 
eleven  men  were  needed  to  pull  it  along  by  means  of  ropes  over 
their  shoulders.  On  it  was  a  huge  jar,  no  less  than  eight  feet 
high,  held  in  place  by  a  man  mounted  behind  it,  and  guarded 
by  poles  in  the  hands  of  the  three  men  who  followed.  The 
eunuch  camp  prefect  made  frequent  trips  in  his  chariot  to 
oversee  the  collection  of  the  booty,  which  was  packed  in  camp 
under  his  businesslike  direction. 

The  army  descended  to  a  plain  for  its  next  encampment,  a 
rectangular  walled  enclosure,  studded  with  battlemented  tow¬ 
ers  within  whose  protection  in  one  corner  stood  the  royal  tent. 
Quitting  this  place,  the  army  pushed  on  over  mountains  so 
steep  and  by  roads  so  execrable  that  it  was  necessary  for  the 
attendants  to  drag  the  chariot  horses  up  the  slope  by  main 
force.  Without  encountering  further  resistance,  Shalmaneser 
reached  Lake  Van  at  a  village  where  the  mountains  ranged 
about  the  curving  shore.  The  procession  to  the  water’s  edge 
was  formed :  first  the  two  royal  standards,  then  the  monarch  on 
foot,  his  high  officials,  the  musicians  playing  on  harps,  finally 
the  bulls  and  rams  destined  for  the  sacrifice.  The  royal  effigy 
had  been  carved  on  a  low  cliff  overhanging  the  water,  where 
Shalmaneser  appeared  as  he  was  wont  to  be  seen  on  state  occa¬ 
sions,  richly  robed  and  with  sceptre  and  tiara,  but  unarmed,  in 
token  of  the  peaceful  nature  of  his  mission.  The  standards 
were  set  up,  with  a  tall  candlestick  by  their  side,  the  king  as¬ 
sumed  the  attitude  of  devotion,  two  bulls  and  four  rams  were 
slaughtered  and  presented  on  the  three-legged  altar  before  the 
stele,  the  libations  were  set  forth  in  a  jar  on  an  ox-footed  sup¬ 
port.  Portions  of  the  slain  animals  were  thrown  by  the  sol¬ 
diers  into  the  lake  to  be  consumed  by  the  fish,  turtles,  and  wild 
swine  that  swarmed  the  shore  or  the  waters. 

Considerable  damage  had  been  caused  to  a  corner  of  Hal- 
dia,  but  it  was  only  a  corner,  and  Arame,  the  first  Haldian 


114 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


king  of  whom  we  have  record,  had  not  even  been  engaged. 
Winter  was  approaching  and  the  passes  would  soon  be  closed ; 
Shalmaneser  decided  to  return  and  by  the  same  route.  On  his 
way  Asau  of  Gilzan  brought  his  gifts,  including  two  humped 
camels  of  the  Bactrian  breed.  The  reconnaissance  in  force  had 
indicated  with  sufficient  clearness  that  it  would  be  no  easy 
matter  to  develop  successes  on  this  frontier,  and  it  suggested 
that  the  material  returns  might  not  meet  the  expense  of  equip¬ 
ping  an  army.  Shalmaneser  turned  to  north  Syria,  where 
Haldian  influence  was  strong,  and  it  was  not  until  after  he  had 
subjugated  Adini  that  another  effort  was  made  to  punish  his 
Armenian  ally.  Turning  back  from  the  Euphrates  in  857,  the 
Assyrians  filed  along  the  slopes  of  the  huge  extinct  volcano  of 
Sumu  into  Zamani  and  thence  through  wild  mountain  paths  to 
the  source  of  the  Tigris,  where,  amid  the  most  savage  of  scen¬ 
ery  and  tribes  as  wild  to-day  as  when  their  ancestors  resisted 
the  march  of  Assyrian  armies,  the  full-grown  river  emerges  in 
a  gorge  whose  walls  had  already  been  adorned  with  the  figure 
of  Tiglath  Pileser.  At  this  time  Shalmaneser  carved  the  first 
of  the  reliefs  which  were  to  commemorate  his  visit  to  so  astound¬ 
ing  a  spot. 

The  border  range  was  penetrated  by  the  Enzite  pass,  the 
Assyrians  crossed  the  eastern  branch  of  the  Euphrates,  and 
appeared  before  the  Haldian  capital,  Arzashkun,  on  a  rocky  ele¬ 
vation  north  of  Lake  Van.  The  little  Haldians,  armed  with 
swords  and  javelins  and  wearing  helmets,  short  skirts,  and 
pointed  shoes,  put  up  a  good  resistance,  and  even  dared  to  seize 
the  bridles  of  the  cavalry  and  chariot  horses  in  the  vain  attempt 
to  delay  the  Assyrian  approach.  Their  discomfiture  was  com¬ 
pleted  by  the  mounted  archers,  they  were  stabbed  by  the  foot¬ 
men,  or  their  legs  were  hacked  off  as  they  lay  on  the  ground. 
The  gates  were  reached,  and  under  the  protection  of  their  com¬ 
panions’  shields  the  soldiers  set  fire  to  the  city.  Arame,  hurry¬ 
ing  through  the  mountains  with  the  main  body  of  the  Haldians, 
found  that  he  had  arrived  too  late,  and  his  forces  were  driven 
back  to  the  hills  in  confusion.  The  accustomed  pillar  of  heads, 
the  stakes  wdth  impaled  prisoners,  the  stele  on  the  near-by 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 


115 


mountain  were  followed  by  a  march  down  to  the  lake  and  the 
repetition  of  the  ceremonies  which  had  marked  the  beginning 
of  the  reign. 

Over  mountains  so  high  that  the  attendants  must  needs  lead 
the  chariots,  the  army  continued  to  Gilzan,  where  camp  was 
pitched  before  the  chief  castle,  situated  on  a  high  hill  beyond 
a  stream.  The  inhabitants,  led  by  their  chief,  Asau,  were  clad 
in  the  long  double  robe,  upturned  shoes,  and  filleted  hair 
which  characterised  the  Hittite  peoples  and  contrasted  so 
strangely  with  their  Semitic  countenances.  Some  brought 
kettles  on  their  heads  or  skins  of  wine  slung  over  their  shoul¬ 
ders,  their  companions  drove  horses,  cattle,  sheep,  and  goats, 
not  to  forget  the  seven  two-humped  camels.  To  judge  from 
the  bronze-gate  representations,  they  were  barely  the  size  of 
ponies;  after  the  lapse  of  a  generation,  the  Obelisk  presented 
them  grown  to  twice  the  height  of  a  man,  and  the  tribute  had 
likewise  grown,  adding  all  sorts  of  metals  and  royal  robes. 
Asau  was  ordered  to  receive  within  his  palace  a  stele  of  Shal¬ 
maneser,  and  the  army  returned  by  the  pass  of  Kirruri  above 
Arbela. 

Thirty  years  before,  Anhite  of  Shupria  had  paid  tribute  to 
Assyria,  but  the  close  presence  of  the  Haldians  had  made  him 
lapse  from  the  Assyrian  allegiance.  In  853  his  capital  of 
Uppume  was  besieged.  The  main  fortification  was  in  three 
sections,  each  with  a  gate,  the  central  portion  on  a  high  hill, 
the  suburbs  on  one  somewhat  lower,  and  there  were  two  out- 
forts.  The  attack,  under  the  personal  direction  of  the  king, 
was  carried  on  entirely  by  archers,  on  foot  or  in  chariots.  An 
unnamed  city  was  likewise  situated  on  three  hills.  On  one 
was  an  outfort,  with  the  wall  extending  down  to  lower  ground. 
From  the  crest  of  the  next,  the  walls  of  the  main  settlement 
stretched  across  a  gully  and  covered  all  the  third  elevation. 
What  the  captives  had  already  suffered  is  indicated  grimly  by 
the  high  isolated  pillar  before  which  were  heaped  three  piles 
of  heads.  The  crown  prince  had  already  appeared  in  the  bat¬ 
tle,  well  protected  by  the  tall  shield  in  the  hand  of  his  atten¬ 
dant;  he  now  took  charge  of  the  train  of  captives,  the  men 


116 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


naked  and  yoked,  the  women  in  long  robes,  though  the  only 
hint  of  booty  was  a  lone  horse.  The  captives  were  presented 
to  the  governor  of  Tushhan  as  he  stood  at  the  gate  of  the 
walled  city  on  a  low  hill. 

The  Assyrians  continued  up  the  river  until  they  reached  the 
“source  of  the  Tigris,  the  place  whence  the  waters  flow,”  the 
“cave  of  the  river”  pictured  in  the  sculptures.  In  one  scene 
the  mountains  sweep  in  a  long  curve  around  the  water,  on  the 
far  side  of  which  is  a  fortress,  with  square  gateways  between 
the  towers.  Stone  pillars  with  round  balls  on  their  tops  flank 
the  opening.  A  sculptor  works  in  the  water,  mallet  on  chisel, 
at  a  representation  of  the  king  which  is  complete  save  that  the 
surrounding  cartouche  is  still  to  be  incised.  So  perfect  is  the 
royal  figure  that  an  official  already  has  taken  his  position  on  a 
platform  erected  among  the  rocks  and  adores  his  master’s 
effigy.  Other  Assyrians  lead  up  a  ram  for  the  sacrifices  and 
drag  on  his  back  a  reluctant  bull  destined  to  meet  the  same 
end. 

A  long  parade  of  soldiers,  foot  and  horse,  up  the  course  of 
the  stream  fills  the  second  scene.  At  their  head  is  the  king, 
whose  sad  lack  of  horsemanship  is  indicated  by  his  riding 
straightlegged  and  with  huge  stirrups  tied  to  the  horse-blanket, 
not,  in  the  only  fashion  known  to  the  oriental  expert,  with 
hunched-up  knees  and  bareback.  The  royal  chariot  and  those 
which  bear  the  standards  are  naturally  a  part  of  the  picture 
and  so  are  the  sacrificial  calf  and  ram.  Through  three  open¬ 
ings  we  see  trees  and  soldiers,  waist  deep  in  the  icy  waters, 
who  uphold  torches  to  lighten  the  gloom.  On  the  rock  at  the 
entrance  is  the  niche  with  the  conventional  royal  figure,  while 
on  a  smaller  rock  in  the  water  the  sculptor  is  putting  on  the 
finishing  touches  under  the  direction  of  the  officer  at  his  side. 
The  accuracy  of  the  picture  is  proved  by  the  reliefs  surviving 
unto  this  day,  one  on  the  wall  of  the  passage  where  the  Tigris 
for  the  moment  comes  to  light  before  again  plunging  into  the 
mountain,  the  second  in  a  huge  upper  cave  decorated  with 
stalactites  and  stalagmites,  where  in  prehistoric  times  the  river 
found  its  outlet.  Above  still  towers  the  cliff  up  which  lead 


I 


Fig.  62.  THE  PRESENT  TIGRIS  TUNNEL.  Fig.  63.  OLDER  TIGRIS  TUNNEL, 

The  white  squeeze  paper  shows  the  location  of  the  inscription  of  Shalmaneser  III.  NOW  CLOSED. 

To  left  is  the  inscription  of  Tiglath  Pileser 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 


117 


rock-cut  stairs  to  the  terraces  on  the  summit  that  mark  the 
site  of  the  settlement  that  once  dominated  the  sacred  stream. 

With  the  exception  of  a  brief  trip  to  the  sources  of  the  Tigris 
and  Euphrates  in  845,  when  Lala  of  Melidia  paid  his  first 
tribute,  there  is  a  total  absence  of  references  to  the  Haldian 
region  until  832.  This  cannot  be  accidental,  for  the  truthful 
map  indicates  that  Assyria  was  losing  ground  during  these 
years.  The  growing  power  of  Urartu  was  reflected  on  the 
eastern  frontier.  Several  times  it  was  visited  by  the  troops  of 
Shalmaneser;  the  details  would  be  unworthy  our  attention 
were  it  not  that  we  have  our  first  references  to  several  peoples 
of  the  first  importance  in  the  later  period. 

Mazamua,  now  replacing  the  older  Zamua,  was  invaded  in 
856;  the  natives  took  refuge  in  boats  upon  an  inland  sea,  but 
the  invaders  followed  them  on  rafts  and  “dyed  the  sea  with 
their  blood  like  wool/7  By  828  Mazamua  was  a  province. 
The  year  844  saw  a  brief  campaign  into  Namri  land.  Marduk- 
mudammiq,  whose  name  indicated  Babylonian  influence  in 
the  neighbourhood,  retired  to  the  hills,  and  his  authority  was 
given  to  a  new  ruler  whom  we  know  only  as  Ianzu,  the  native 
Kashshite  word  for  king.  By  835  he  had  become  hostile,  had 
been  driven  to  the  hills,  and  had  been  made  prisoner.  Paru 
of  Elli  was  established  in  Tupliash.  Twenty-seven  kinglets  of 
Parsua  land  paid  their  dues  when  Shalmaneser  appeared  in 
their  country,  and  in  the  Missi  land  he  found  a  possession  of 
the  Amadai.  This  at  least  is  worthy  our  most  careful  notice, 
for  it  is  the  first  appearance  of  the  Medes  in  history. 

A  change  of  dynasty  in  Haldia  replaced  Arame  by  Sardurish 
I,  the  son  of  Lutipri.  His  are  the  first  Haldian  monuments, 
but  the  cuneiform  had  not  yet  been  adapted  to  the  vernacular, 
and  Sardurish  writes  in  Assyrian.  His  imitation  of  the  As¬ 
syrian  royal  formulas  might  be  innocent  enough,  but  his  title 
“King  of  the  World,  King  of  Nairi,”  was  a  direct  challenge  to 
Shalmaneser. 

An  expedition  was  prepared,  but  Shalmaneser  did  not 
himself  undertake  to  meet  the  challenge;  stranger  still,  the 
official  annals  admit  that  it  was  led  by  Daian  Ashur,  the 


118 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


turtanu.  Haldia  was  entered  by  the  Ammash  pass,  and  the 
Euphrates  was  crossed,  but  Sardurish  was  safe  on  the  rock  of 
Van,  to  which  he  had  transferred  his  capital,  and  a  great  wall 
to  the  lake  permitted  the  bringing  in  of  provisions.  The 
barren  claim  to  victory  hides  a  defeat,  for  when  two  years 
later  it  was  necessary  to  raid  Kirhi  and  Ulluba,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  there  had  been  retrocession  of  the  Assyrian  sphere 
of  influence. 

Daian  Ashur  crossed  the  Upper  Zab  in  829,  forced  tribute 
from  Datana  of  Hubushkia,  and  drove  out  Udaki  from  Zirta, 
capital  of  the  Mannai.  Though  not  so  well  known  to  the  gen¬ 
eral  reader  as  the  Medes,  this  reference  likewise  has  its  interest 
to  the  student  of  Assyrian  history,  for  the  Mannai  were  close 
and  respected  allies  of  Assyria  in  the  last  century  of  her  exist¬ 
ence.  The  last  campaign  of  the  reign  (828),  the  unwearied  old 
turtanu  made  a  swing  around  the  circle.  After  the  capture  of 
Musasir,  another  state  destined  to  play  a  most  important  part 
in  the  next  century,  he  fell  upon  the  border  of  Haldia,  but  failed 
here  and  returned  through  Gilzan  and  the  Parsua  towns  that 
he  might  have  some  conquests  to  narrate.  Such  “ victories” 
of  the  last  few  years  need  no  interpretation ;  the  border  states 
might  be  sure  that  the  immediate  future  was  not  with  Assyria, 
but  with  Haldia. 

Assyrian  influence  had  been  made  supreme  in  western  Meso¬ 
potamia  by  Ashur-nasir-apal,  but  the  growth  of  Haldia  had 
seriously  weakened  her  prestige,  and  control  of  the  Euphrates 
bend  must  again  be  won  by  the  sword.  After  the  virtual  fail¬ 
ure  of  the  Armenian  expedition  of  860,  Shalmaneser  turned 
to  the  west.  Lucky  and  unlucky  days  played  a  large  part  in 
Assyrian  life;  we  realise  the  difference  between  ancient  and 
modern  superstition  when  we  discover  the  army  leaving 
Nineveh  on  the  lucky  13th  of  Airu,  the  beginning  of  May. 
The  chief  objective  was  wealthy  north  Syria,  but  it  crossed 
the  northern  limits  of  Adini,  whose  new  master,  Ahuni,  was 
driven  by  a  skirmish  to  take  refuge  behind  his  fortifications. 
When  the  horrible  spectacle  of  a  pillar  of  heads  was  seen  before 
the  Aramaean  settlement  of  Bur  Marna,  the  “  Spring  of  our 


Fig.  64.  THE  EXIT  FROM  THE  TIGRIS  TUNNEL. 


Fig.  65.  EDESSA,  PERHAPS  KAPRABI. 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 


119 


Lord/’  the  threat  was  sufficient  to  bring  in  the  contributions  of 
Habini  of  Til  Abni  and  of  Gauni  of  Sarugi,  whose  name  is  to 
be  compared  with  that  of  the  Hebrew  patriarch  Serug.1  As¬ 
syrian  control  was  marked  by  the  erection  of  a  palace;  a  sur¬ 
viving  slab  bears  a  lion  which  might  be  the  twin  of  those  in  the 
palace  of  Ashur-nasir-apal. 

Conquest  of  Syria  was  impossible  with  Adini  in  the  rear, 
and  in  the  next  year  Shalmaneser  invited  the  crown  prince 
to  leave  with  him  Nineveh  on  the  lucky  13th  of  Airu.  He 
hastened  by  the  direct  road  to  the  capital  of  Adini,  Til  Barsip, 
which  commanded  one  of  the  most  important  fords  of  the 
Euphrates,  where  the  islands  show  in  summer  and  a  ferry 
crosses  to-day.  The  city  was  large  as  such  cities  went,  the 
ramparts  on  the  land  side  were  strong,  a  quay  cut  through  the 
conglomerate  testified  to  commerce  by  water,  and  the  Hittite 
substratum  in  the  people  was  indicated  by  the  Hittite  sculp¬ 
ture  in  basalt.  Ahuni  attempted  to  block  the  passage  of  the 
river,  but  was  driven  back  into  the  city,  and  the  Adini  cities  on 
the  Syrian  bank  were  plundered. 

The  third  year  (857)  Shalmaneser  was  forced  to  devote  more 
special  attention  to  Adini,  for,  inspired  by  the  growing  power  of 
Haldia,  Ahuni  actually  led  the  whole  of  his  army  against  the 
Assyrian  border.  The  Assyrian  general  sent  out  by  Shal¬ 
maneser  found  the  enemy  drawn  up  on  a  mountain;  he  blew 
like  the  fierce  wind-storm  that  breaks  down  trees,  let  fly  his 
troops  like  a  hawk  against  his  opponents,  and  drove  Ahuni 
out  of  the  camp  like  a  thief,  so  that  his  master  might  despoil 
the  royal  treasures.  The  name  of  Til  Barsip  was  changed  to 
Kar  Shulmanasharidu,  in  honour  of  the  sovereign  whose  'Tort  ” 
it  became.  Two  mighty  lions  of  basalt,  inscribed  with  a  record 
of  the  warfare,  were  placed  in  the  south  gate,  while  inside  the 
walls  was  a  stele  where  Shalmaneser  might  be  seen  addressing 
the  rival  prince  with  his  conical  cap.  The  occupied  cities  were 
given  similar  names.  But  Adini  was  not  completely  Assyrian- 
ised,  for  a  century  later  the  Hebrew  Amos  saw  the  cutting  off 
of  the  sceptre-bearer  of  Beth  Eden  still  in  the  future,  and  its 

1  Gen.  11:20. 


120 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


captivity  was  remembered  as  late  as  the  days  of  Sennacherib.1 

With  Adini  Assyrian,  it  was  absurd  to  permit  a  little  Mesopo¬ 
tamian  state  to  retain  its  independence  at  the  River  Balih, 
in  the  heart  of  that  territory.  The  partisans  of  Assyria  were 
passed  the  word,  and  on  the  royal  approach  in  854,  they 
assassinated  their  lord,  Giammu.  No  new  king  was  named, 
but  the  Assyrian  gods  were  placed  in  the  temple  and  a  cere¬ 
monial  feast  was  celebrated  in  the  palace  of  the  late  ruler. 
The  incorporation,  long  ago  demanded  by  the  necessities  of 
the  case,  was  at  last  carried  into  effect,  and  the  Balih  region 
became  a  part  of  the  Harran  province. 

Strangely  enough,  the  still  smaller  state  of  Til  Abni  in  the 
semiarid  region  due  east  was  permitted  to  retain  its  inde¬ 
pendence.  Without  the  sculptures,  we  should  never  have 
suspected  the  favoured  place  it  held.  The  reception  accorded 
Habini  was  very  different  from  that  to  any  other  conquered 
ruler.  He  did  indeed  make  obeisance,  bowing  his  head  before 
the  king,  but  he  made  his  approach  from  his  fully  fortified 
camp  in  chariots  which,  in  form  as  in  trapping,  were  in  the 
best  Assyrian  style,  and  he  was  accompanied  by  attendants 
who  exemplified  all  the  latest  fashions  of  the  Assyrian  upper 
class.  Their  hair  hung  in  a  mass  at  the  nape  of  the  neck,  and 
their  beards  were  long  and  square  cut,  like  that  of  Shalmaneser 
himself,  and  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  pointed  beards  affected 
not  only  by  the  princes  of  the  subjugated  peoples  but  by  the 
lower-class  Assyrians  as  well.  Habini  himself  wore  the  long- 
fringed  robe  and  the  fringed  jacket  with  diagonal  opening,  and 
had  just  laid  aside  his  ornamented  Assyrian  sandals.  He  was 
thoroughly  Assyrianised  and  valued  by  his  masters. 

The  official  scribe  who  compiled  the  record  for  the  Obelisk 
has  carelessly  omitted  the  campaign  for  838;  the  sculptor  has 
seen  to  it  that  we  learn  it  was  against  Marduk-apal-usur,  the 
last  prince  of  Suhi  on  the  middle  Euphrates.  The  scene  in  the 
most  conspicuous  position  shows  what  made  strongest  appeal 
to  the  artist,  the  palm-covered  hills  along  the  river  in  which 
the  lion  hunted  the  stag.  The  natives,  assigned  to  second 

1  Amos  1:5;  II  Kings  19 :  12. 


Fig.  07.  LION  FROM  SARUGI,  A  PROVINCIAL  IMITATION  OF  THE 

LIONS  FROM  KALHU. 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 


121 


place,  barely  permit  their  beards  to  appear;  the  most  con¬ 
spicuous  article  of  apparel  was  a  fringed  girdle  of  such  length 
that  it  hung  down  the  side.  Similar  fringed  girdles  of  various 
colours  were  draped  over  a  pole  resting  on  the  shoulders  of 
two  citizens  of  Suhi,  the  remainder  were  laden  with  elephants’ 
tusks,  golden  pails,  bowls,  and  bars  of  lead.  No  king  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  various  scenes  to  bow  before  Shalmaneser  and 
no  shaknu  is  again  mentioned  in  Suhi.  Four  years  before, 
Nimit  Ishtar  was  still  the  capital  of  a  small  province;  there 
was  now  formed  the  most  extensive  province  of  the  empire, 
Rasappa.  Its  capital  was  at  the  head  of  the  Tartara  under 
the  Singara  range;  it  included  Apku  north  of  the  mountains, 
Nimit  Ishtar  to  the  east,  Mari  to  the  southeast,  and  the  whole 
steppe  region  to  the  south  and  southwest,  Qatni  on  the  Habur, 
and  the  entire  length  of  the  Euphrates,  so  far  as  it  was  As¬ 
syrian,  from  Dur  Karpati,  “Pot  Wall,”  opposite  the  fort  Ashur- 
nasir-apal  had  located  against  Adini  and  had  named  from 
himself,  through  Sirqu,  Laqe,  Hindanu,  Anat,  Suhi,  to  Ashur- 
isbat,  the  new  designation  of  the  bitumen  pits  at  Id. 

With  the  reign  of  Shalmaneser  III  the  history  of  Babylonia 
becomes  inextricably  bound  up  with  that  of  Assyria,  and  As¬ 
syrian  records  are  henceforth  our  chief  source  of  information. 
The  ruler  of  Babylon  was,  at  this  time,  Nabu-apal-iddina, 
known  to  all  students  of  Babylonian  religion  and  of  art  for 
his  beautiful  relief  in  commemoration  of  the  finding  of  the 
Sun-God’s  image.  Too  weak  to  war  directly  against  Assyria, 
he  had  yet  sent  aid  to  a  rebel  in  Suhi,  and  no  sooner  was  Shal¬ 
maneser  on  the  throne  than  he  enforced  a  treaty  which  was 
euphemistically  entitled  a  “treaty  of  complete  alliance,”  but 
in  reality  marked  the  subjugation  of  Babylonia  to  Assyria. 
This  subordination  became  perfectly  evident  when  Shalmaneser 
marched  south  and  in  Babylon  and  Borsippa  offered  the  sacri¬ 
fices  to  Marduk  and  Nabu  which  only  the  suzerain  of  those 
cities  might  present  (860).  In  due  time  Nabu-apal-iddina 
“stood  upon  his  mountain,”  and  his  place  was  filled  by  the 
Assyrian  nominee,  Marduk-zakir-shum  I.  The  anti-Assyrian 
forces  rallied  around  his  younger  brother,  Marduk-bel-usate, 


122 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


who  seized  the  upper  part  of  Akkad,  and  thus  cut  off  Marduk- 
zakir-shum  from  his  overlord. 

Shalmaneser  was  only  too  glad  to  rescue  his  subordinate.  He 
sacrificed  to  Adad  at  Zaban,  and  then  marched  south  against 
Daban,  the  temporary  capital  of  the  rebel  (853).  Marduk- 
bel-usate  was  shut  up  in  Gananate,  his  crops  and  orchards 
destroyed,  his  canals  dammed,  but  it  required  a  second  year’s 
campaign  before  he  was  driven  out  “like  a  fox  from  his  hole.” 
The  fugitive  hastened  along  the  road  to  Elam,  but  in  the  mouth 
of  the  pass  he  was  overtaken  and  put  to  death  as  a  rebel. 

Freed  from  the  rivalry  of  his  brother,  Marduk-zakir-shum 
had  still  to  reckon  with  his  overlord,  who  was  in  no  haste  to 
surrender  the  advantages  he  had  won.  As  the  acknowledged 
suzerain  of  Babylon,  he  filled  the  city  with  his  gifts  and  pure 
offerings  to  Marduk,  sacrificed  to  Nergal  in  Kutu,  and  ap¬ 
peared  in  Borsippa,  where  even  more  gracious  treatment  was 
accorded  Nabu  and  his  consort,  their  temple  Ezida,  and  their 
inhabitants,  who  were  banqueted,  richly  clothed,  and  presented 
with  wondrous  gifts. 

Having  thus  won  over  the  priestly  class  and  having  learned 
that  the  gods  looked  graciously  upon  him  and  had  heard  his 
prayers,  he  determined  to  clear  Babylonia  of  the  pest  of 
Aramaean  tribes  which  was  bringing  the  land  to  ruin.  Under 
the  inspection  of  a  seated  eunuch,  a  bowman  of  the  body-guard 
supervised  the  construction  of  the  pontoon  bridge  across  the 
Euphrates.  Inflated  skins  were  tied  together,  beams  connected 
them  with  the  shore,  an  earthen  causeway  was  heaped  up 
at  either  approach.  The  superstructure  was  formed  of  stones, 
brush,  and  clay,  carried  by  soldiers  with  swords  at  their  sides, 
ready  to  repel  a  sudden  attack.  The  enemy  were  not  far  away, 
for  the  bowmen  were  still  shooting  in  their  direction. 

Once  the  chariot  horses  had  been  led  across  the  shaky  bridge, 
the  Assyrians  were  in  the  territory  of  the  powerful  Dakkuru. 
Like  their  descendants  in  modern  times,  these  wanderers  pos¬ 
sessed  little  mud  castles  where  they  deposited  their  scanty 
wealth  in  times  of  danger.  Baqani  was  a  small,  double- walled 
fort  with  two  gates,  situated  on  a  fair-sized  artificial  mound  by 


THE  THREAT  OF  ARARAT 


123 


the  stream  and  in  a  country  filled  with  palms.  The  nomads 
were  soon  in  flight,  and  Shalmaneser  dismounted  to  receive 
Adini,  the  Dakkuru  chief,  a  tall,  beardless  youth.  His  nobles 
followed  swathed  in  trailing  fringed  robes,  while  the  higher 
officials  were  brave  with  their  long  Assyrian  beards.  Tribes¬ 
men,  clad  only  in  short  skirts  and  in  their  bare  feet,  brought 
bars  and  pigs  of  various  metals  and  large  and  small  kettles  to 
the  edge  of  the  stream,  where  they  were  transferred  to  two 
small  flat-bottomed  boats,  laden  with  bales  of  goods  and  steered 
by  a  rude  oar  while  naked  men  dragged  them  along.  Already 
the  skin  of  a  wild  beast  and  a  tray  filled  with  ivories  had  been 
landed  and  were  ready  for  the  conqueror. 

From  his  camp  Shalmaneser  passed  over  a  second  pontoon 
bridge  and  approached  a  town  surrounded  by  double  walls, 
each  with  two  gates.  This  was  the  abode  of  Iakinu,  king  of  the 
Sealands,  a  man  with  a  pointed  beard  and  long  fringed  gar¬ 
ments.  His  present  lack  of  importance  was  emphasised  by  his 
following  of  but  two  servants,  one  bearing  a  small  kettle  and 
leading  two  calves,  the  other  with  a  jug  and  a  lamb  under  his 
arm.  None  might  guess  that  he  was  to  give  his  name  to  a 
land  and  a  race  which  was  to  furnish  the  most  redoubtable 
opponents  to  the  later  empire  until  it  went  down  before  them 
and  the  dynasty  of  Nebuchadnezzar  made  Babylon  the  wonder 
of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XI 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 

The  reconnaissance  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  indicated  that  Syria 
was  wealthy  and  not  too  difficult  of  conquest ;  Shalmaneser  took 
it  upon  himself  to  secure  the  proof.  North  Syria  was  in  a 
transition  period,  half  Hittite,  half  Aramaean.  To  the  former 
belonged  the  most  northerly  state  of  Syria — Gurgum,  with 
its  ruler,  Mutallu.  A  short  distance  south  lay  the  Aramaean 
Samal,  already  known  to  the  Egyptians,  and  two  ancestors, 
Gabbar  and  Bamah,  had  preceded  its  present  king,  Hayya. 
The  territory  directly  west  of  the  Euphrates  crossing  and  the 
line  to  the  sea  was  held  by  Hattina,  though  it  was  sometimes 
also  called  Unqi,  from  the  great  swamps  in  the  centre.  The 
reigning  monarch  was  Sapalulme,  whose  name  drew  attention 
to  an  assumed  descent  from  the  mighty  Shuppiluliuma  of  the 
real  Hittite  empire,  whose  remembrance  was  preserved  in 
Hattina.  The  actual  crossing  of  the  Euphrates  was  controlled 
on  the  west  bank  by  the  Hittite  Sangara  of  Carchemish; 
Agusi  with  its  capital  Arne  was  under  the  Aramaean  Arame. 

Because  of  its  closer  connection  with  the  Greeks,  we  welcome 
gladly  the  most  casual  references  to  Asia  Minor,  though  it  is 
doubtful  if  contemporaries  were  aware  that  a  frontier  had  been 
passed  when  they  entered  the  anti-Taurus  or  the  Cilician  plain. 
The  kings  of  these  portions  of  Asia  Minor  always  considered 
their  territory  an  integral  part  of  north  Syria,  they  regularly 
entered  the  alliances  formed  against  Assyrian  invasion,  and 
in  the  Assyrian  records  they  are  mixed  indiscriminately  with 
*  the  chiefs  of  north  Syria. 

Four  distinct  divisions  are  now  recognised,  and  with  certain 
slight  modifications  and  changes  of  name,  they  continue  to 
the  end  of  the  Assyrian  period.  Well  up  the  Euphrates  was 

Melidia,  or  Melitene,  already  made  tributary  by  Tiglath  Pileser 

124 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


125 


I,  and  now  ruled  by  Lala.  In  the  anti-Taurus  to  the  west  was 
Tabal,  generally  divided  among  independent  chiefs,  one  to 
each  of  the  mountain  valleys.  In  the  rolling  country  later 
called  Lycaonia  was  Hilaku,  whose  name  was  to  be  transferred 
to  Cilicia  after  the  Hilakai  had  descended  through  the  Cilician 
Gates  into  the  plain,  which  during  the  whole  of  Assyrian  his¬ 
tory  was  to  be  called  Que.  The  latter  was  now  under  the  con¬ 
trol  of  Kate,  the  former  of  Pihirim.1 

Rafts  laid  on  inflated  skins  carried  the  Assyrians  across  the 
Euphrates  in  859,  only  to  be  met  by  a  confederacy  which  in¬ 
cluded  the  whole  group  of  previously  mentioned  kings.  A 
tactical  victory  was  won,  but  Shalmaneser  was  forced  to  con¬ 
tent  himself  with  the  barren  honour  of  erecting  a  stele  under 
the  Amanus  at  the  sources  of  the  Saluara  River.  The  siege 
of  the  Hattinian  Alisir,  not  far  from  where  was  to  be  one  day 
the  site  of  the  mighty  city  of  Antioch,  was  checked  by  another 
attack  from  the  allies,  but  the  Assyrian  victory  was  again  fol¬ 
lowed  by  no  important  results. 

The  tribute  of  the  “  kings  of  the  seacoast,”  the  Phoenicians, 
alone  recompensed  him  for  his  trouble.  The  quadrangular 
Assyrian  camp  with  its  overhanging  towers  was  pitched  by 
the  seashore,  and  the  king  took  his  place  under  his  parasol. 
He  was  surrounded  by  his  guards  and  attendants,  in  particular 
the  three  turtanus.  The  master  of  ceremonies,  facing  back¬ 
ward,  beckoned  for  the  ambassadors  to  approach.  The  two 
representatives  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  accompanied  by  their  sons, 
advanced,  their  hands  in  the  attitude  of  adoration.  Their 
beards  were  pointed,  their  double  robes  were  long  and  clinging, 
their  turbans  were  wound  with  ribbons  which  fell  to  their 
necks,  their  shoes  were  upturned.  Behind  these  merchant 
princes  came  the  tribute-bearers,  some  bearing  trays  filled  with 
oriental  sweetmeats,  some  with  boxes  on  their  shoulders  or 
huge  caldrons  carried  like  caps  on  their  heads.  The  last  of  the 
procession  unloaded  their  boat  in  the  water,  too  shallow  to 
permit  reaching  land. 

1  Cf.  The  Assyrians  in  Asia  Minor ,  in  Anatolian  Studies  presented  to  Sir  Wil¬ 
liam  Mitchell  Ramsay ,  283  ff. 


126 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Their  boats  were  long,  narrow  craft,  each  with  two  men  who 
steered  and  rowed,  or  rather  poled  them  along  by  oars  without 
oar-locks.  Ropes  attached  to  the  upstanding  figureheads  of 
camels  at  the  high  prows  and  sterns  held  them  fast  to  the  shore. 
They  were  piled  high  with  bales  of  dark-blue  wool,  with  cloths 
the  colour  of  the  precious  lapis  lazuli  carried  on  poles  suspended 
from  men’s  shoulders,  with  ingots  of  gold  and  silver,  lead  and 
copper.  One  great  jar  required  special  attention  as  it  was 
handed  from  the  boat  to  the  shore.  Whole  trees  and  beams  of 
cedar,  in  themselves  sufficient  to  repay  the  Assyrians  for  their 
long  trip,  were  brought  down  and  piled  up.  Across  the  bay 
could  be  seen  a  rocky  islet  which  bore  a  town  with  high  battle- 
mented  walls  and  possessed  two  gates.  Their  hands  laden 
with  gifts,  the  chief  and  his  wife  came  forth,  her  hair  flowing, 
her  skirt  tucked  up  to  avoid  the  water. 

A  second  stele  was  carved  at  Atalur,  on  a  cliff  by  the  sea¬ 
shore,  where  one  day  Antioch’s  seaport,  Seleucia,  was  to  be  lo¬ 
cated,  and  where  his  predecessor,  Ashur-rabi  II,  had  already  left 
a  memorial  of  his  presence.  The  return  journey  was  equally 
prosperous.  The  Hattinians,  clad  in  short  girdled  tunics  and 
protected  only  by  round  helmets  and  neck-pieces,  were  easily 
defeated  in  detail,  while  the  Assyrians  seized  them  by  the  hair, 
stabbed  them,  and  decorated  the  chariots  with  the  severed 
heads.  Hazazu  was  a  good-sized  fort  on  a  low  artificial  mound 
which  witnessed  to  the  respectable  antiquity  that  already  lay 
behind  it.  When  the  troops  in  heavy  armour  began  the  esca¬ 
lade  and  the  town  was  already  on  fire,  the  townspeople  could 
no  longer  resist.  The  king  received  his  prisoners  under  a 
canopy  held  by  servants  before  the  round  camp.  Great  was 
the  contrast  between  the  richly  clad  officials  who  introduced 
them  and  the  long  file  of  captives,  some  without  a  stitch  of 
clothing,  their  necks  in  a  rope  and  their  hands  tied  behind 
them,  the  women  with  their  hair  hanging  down  their  backs  and 
in  gowns  which  reached  only  to  elbows  and  ankles. 

The  year  following,  Shalmaneser  began  the  systematic  re¬ 
duction  of  the  Adini  towns  west  of  the  Euphrates.  At  the 
investment  of  Til  Bashere,  the  king  seated  himself  under  a 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


127 


canopy  to  watch  the  operation  of  a  new  contrivance,  a  ram  on 
six  wheels,  operated  by  a  man  in  a  sort  of  cupola  on  the  top, 
which  was  attacking  the  tower  that  protected  the  lone  gate  in 
the  long  wall.  The  defenders  dropped  stones  upon  it  but  in 
vain,  and  the  city  on  the  low  mound  which  gave  so  commanding 
a  position  to  the  crusading  Turbessel,  and  above  whose  walls 
projected  the  gable  roof  of  the  palace  of  Hittite  fashion,  be¬ 
came  Assyrian.  The  citizens  of  the  upper  town,  bearded  men 
wearing  liberty  caps,  with  long,  double  robes  open  at  the  sides 
and  pointed  shoes,  were  led  with  ropes  about  their  necks;  the 
matrons,  their  hair  below  the  waist  and  barelegged,  followed 
meekly;  and  dromedaries  and  mules  brought  out  the  couches 
and  such  other  furniture  as  was  considered  worthy  of  removal. 
The  whole  convoy  was  under  the  direction  of  the  crown  prince, 
whose  uncertain  stand  in  his  chariot  was  made  easier  by  the 
protecting  arm  of  his  squire,  and  his  presence  was  also  indi¬ 
cated  by  the  smaller  tent  at  the  side  of  the  larger  and  by  the 
double  guard  which  watched  the  camp. 

Changing  his  direction,  Shalmaneser  fell  upon  the  territories 
of  Carchemish,  and  the  reduction  of  Sazabe  brought  the  coali¬ 
tion  to  terms.  The  remaining  narrative  for  the  year  is  made  up 
of  the  tribute  furnished  by  the  various  princes.  That  the 
numbers  have  grown  in  the  process  of  transmission  is  to  be 
expected,  but  when  all  allowance  is  made,  the  lists  still  afford 
us  a  most  instructive  insight  into  the  economic  life  of  north 
Syria. 

The  ruler  of  Hattina  offered  three  talents  of  gold  and  a  hun¬ 
dred  of  silver,  three  hundred  of  copper  and  the  same  of  iron,  a 
thousand  articles  in  the  last  metal,  a  thousand  cloaks,  twenty 
talents  of  one  kind  of  purple  and  two  of  another,  five  hundred 
cattle  and  five  thousand  sheep.  For  the  collection  of  this 
tribute,  it  was  necessary  to  penetrate  the  great  swamp  of  Unqi, 
access  to  which  could  be  gained  only  by  flat-bottomed  boats 
that  could  pass  anywhere  in  the  shallows.  Two  men,  their 
long  hair  bound  with  fillets  and  their  clothes  as  abbreviated  as 
might  be  expected  of  an  aquatic  folk,  rowed  and  steered  them 
by  oars  hung  in  thongs.  Shalmaneser  did  not  trust  himself  to 


128 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


their  uncertain  protection,  but  contented  himself  with  a  posi¬ 
tion  on  the  shore  across  from  where,  on  a  low  mound  in  the 
midst  of  the  swamp,  stood  the  capital,  a  double-gated  fortress 
with  battlements  on  its  walls.  Under  the  parasol  which  the 
damp  heat  demanded,  he  received  the  Hattinian  monarch, 
aping  the  Assyrian  with  his  long  fringed  robe  and  shawl. 
With  him  were  his  nobles,  their  hair  long  on  head  and  face, 
their  sweeping  robes  carefully  draped,  and  the  inevitable 
Hittite  upturned  shoes.  Among  them  was  to  be  observed  a 
man  with  a  strongly  negroid  face,  unsuspected  witness  to  race 
mixture. 

The  plundering  was  thorough,  and  the  soldiers  carried  off 
their  loot  in  baskets  and  sacks,  skins  filled  with  wine,  trays 
heaped  with  valuables,  tusks  of  elephants.  From  a  smaller 
castle,  also  on  a  mound  in  the  water,  came  other  suppliants  bear¬ 
ing  the  same  gifts,  but  with  different  dress,  short  robes  which 
exposed  their  bare  limbs  and  the  regulation  shoes,  Aramaeans 
who  had  forced  themselves  in  by  the  side  of  their  Hittite  neigh¬ 
bours.  A  third  furnished  horses  and  cattle,  the  latter  still 
driven  in  huge  herds  along  the  watery  ways,  though  rare 
enough  in  other  parts  of  Syria.  One  of  these  Aramaeans 
trudged  along,  on  his  back  a  huge  wine-jar  that  was  destined 
to  be  placed  later  on  a. tripod  by  the  table  and  under  the  tent 
which  Shalmaneser  had  ordered  to  be  pitched  some  distance 
back  from  the  shore.  The  tragedy  behind  the  curt  statement 
of  the  annals — '  ‘  his  daughter  with  her  rich  dowry  I  received  ” — is 
revealed  in  all  its  pathos  in  the  half-grown  Hittite  maiden,  her 
hair  barely  reaching  to  her  neck,  who  stretched  out  her  hands 
in  vain  supplication  to  the  relentless  conqueror  who  had  deter¬ 
mined  to  immure  her  in  his  harem. 

Sangara  was  not  so  rich  as  the  king  of  Hattina,  for  the  com¬ 
mercial  predominance  of  north  Syria  was  yet  to  be  gained  by 
Carchemish.  His  gifts  were  but  three  talents  of  gold,  seventy 
of  silver,  thirty  of  copper,  a  hundred  of  iron,  twenty  of  purple, 
five  hundred  weapons,  and  cattle,  five  thousand  each  of  sheep, 
horses,  buffaloes,  and  goats,  but  he  made  up  the  account  by 
presenting  five  hundred  noble  maidens,  whom  the  scribe  cyni- 


Fig.  70.  IN  THE  GREAT  SWAMP  OF  NORTH  SYRIA. 


Fig.  72.  SAMAL,  CAPITAL  OF  THE  NORTHERN  JUDAH 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


129 


4  , 

cally  lists  between  the  cattle  and  the  weapons.  Four  of  his 
castles,  all  located  on  the  bank  of  the  Euphrates,  on  low  mounds 
and  without  the  usual  overhanging  platforms,  were  forced  to 
disgorge.  The  citizens,  headed  by  Sangara  himself  and  his 
two  beardless  sons,  were  not  unattractive — profiles  less  sharp 
than  those  of  the  Assyrians,  noses  straight,  short  hair  and 
beards.  The  common  sort  had  retained  their  ancestral  garb, 
the  conical  twisted  turbans,  the  long  double  robes,  the  up¬ 
turned  shoes,  but  Assyrian  fashions  had  conquered  the  no¬ 
bility,  who  wore  the  long  single  robe  and  the  coats  with 
plain  sleeves  which  characterised  the  victors.  Hayya  of  Samal 
offered  ten  talents  of  silver,  ninety  of  copper,  thirty  of  iron, 
three  hundred  articles  of  clothing,  the  same  number  of  cattle, 
and  ten  times  that  number  of  sheep,  two  hundred  cedar  beams, 
as  well  as  his  daughter. 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  these  indemnities,  the  direct  re¬ 
sult  if  not  the  direct  incentive  of  the  expedition,  we  have  no 
reason  to  doubt  the  amount  of  the  yearly  assessments,  for 
their  modesty  is  the  best  argument  for  their  authenticity. 
Hattina  gave  a  talent  of  silver,  two  of  purple,  a  hundred  cedar 
beams;  Samal,  twenty  pounds  of  gold,  a  hundred  cedar  beams; 
Agusi,  twenty  pounds  of  gold,  six  talents  of  silver,  five  hundred 
cattle,  and  five  thousand  sheep;  Carchemish,  but  two  pounds 
of  gold,  a  talent  of  silver,  and  two  of  purple;  Qummuh,  forty 
pounds  of  silver  and  three  hundred  beams. 

For  those  who  are  not  affrighted  by  statistics,  the  interest  of 
this  passage  is  great.  Previously  we  have  been  furnished  more 
or  less  exact  accounts  of  the  booty  collected  in  the  course  of  a 
raid,  and  sometimes  a  general  statement  as  to  the  infliction  of 
a  regular  tribute.  Here  for  the  first  time  we  are  presented 
with  a  formal  tribute  list.  There  is  the  greatest  disproportion 
between  the  indemnity,  the  contribution  paid  when  the  king 
must  go  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  collecting  and  equipping 
an  army,  and  the  yearly  tribute  handed  over  in  the  capital. 
The  indemnity  often  gives  huge  amounts  of  copper,  iron, 
clothes,  which  are  never  included  in  the  yearly  tribute.  In 
Hattina,  for  example,  the  yearly  tribute  in  precious  metals 


130 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


was  less  than  one  per  cent  of  the  indemnity.  The  system 
tended  to  favour  submission,  since  it  was  far  cheaper  to  furnish 
a  yearly  tribute  instead  of  an  indemnity.  The  populace  was 
compelled  to  pay  for  the  support  of  their  own  princes  in  addi¬ 
tion,  but  even  with  this  included,  the  taxation  was  certainly 
not  so  grinding  as  in  Sargonid  times. 

The  objective  of  the  next  year’s  campaign  was  Halman,  or 
Aleppo.  He  received  the  tribute  of  the  kings  of  north  Syria 
again,  the  only  change  being  that  Gurgum  and  Hattina  were 
now  under  Gabbarud.  Shalmaneser  sacrificed  to  the  local 
Adad;  his  offerings  accepted,  he  might  believe  his  title  made 
good,  with  gods  as  with  men,  to  the  rightful  rule  of  Syria. 

His  way  was  paved  for  further  advances  to  the  south.  At 
the  end  of  the  long  road  lay  the  greatest  prize  with  a  mighty 
past,  a  present  wealth,  and  a  future  which  at  its  best  was  most 
dubious.  With  all  its  manifest  weakness,  the  barbarous 
Libyan  kings  still  claimed  a  vague  suzerainty  over  the  whole  of 
Syria  in  memory  of  the  days  of  Thutmose  III  and  Ramses  II. 
Shishak  I,  the  founder  of  the  twenty-second  dynasty,  had 
actually  enforced  his  rights  in  Palestine  by  his  arms,  and  the 
Zerah  the  Ethiopian  who  is  reported  to  have  invaded  the 
Philistine  plain  was  probably  Osorkon  I.  The  second  Osorkon 
was  precariously  seated  on  the  Egyptian  throne,  and,  imperilled 
though  he  was  by  internal  dissensions,  was  keenly  interested 
in  what  was  happening  in  Syria.  We  cannot  blame  Egypt 
for  doing  all  she  could  to  postpone  the  day  when  Assyria  should 
stand  on  the  north  side  of  the  desert  and  look  with  desire  to 
the  Nile  valley.  We  should  blame  the  states  of  Syria  and 
Palestine,  whose  eyes  were  so  blinded  by  the  glorious  past  that 
they  could  not  recognise  the  ever-lessening  promise  of  the 
future.// 

Hamath  and  Damascus  were  the  two  greatest  powers  in 
central  Syria.  The  enormous  ruin  mound  and  the  numerous 
and  impressive  Hittite  inscriptions  discovered  within  show  how 
long  the  former  had  been  a  leading  centre.  Its  king,  Toi,  had 
cemented  friendship  with  David,  and  now  Irhuleni  was  the 
head  of  a  fair-sized  confederacy.  Damascus  had  been  an 


Fig.  74.  ALEPPO,  CHIEF  CITY  OF  NORTH  SYRIA. 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


131 


important  oasis  mart  long  before  the  Aramaeans  had  made  it 
their  own,  and  it  is  mentioned  several  times  in  the  days  when 
Egyptian  control  of  Syria  was  more  than  a  name.  The  Ara¬ 
maeans  had  secured  it  by  the  days  of  David,  and  when  its  in¬ 
habitants  brought  aid  to  Beth  Rehob,  David  garrisoned  the 
city.  In  the  confusion  at  the  end  of  Solomon’s  reign,  one  of 
the  generals  of  Hadadezer  of  Zobah  set  up  for  himself,  expelled 
the  Hebrew  guards,  and  as  Rezon  I  began  the  history  of  Da¬ 
mascus  as  a  state  of  the  first  magnitude.  Ben  Hadad  I  was 
developing  a  real  empire. 

Tyre  was  a  small  settlement  on  a  tiny  rock  not  far  from  the 
sea  in  the  Egyptian  period.  With  the  decline  of  the  Egyptian 
and  Minoan  sea-power,  the  Mediterranean  became  Phoenician. 
Hiram  I  abandoned  this  site,  which  was  henceforth  called  Old 
Tyre,  and  was  marked  only  by  the  ancient  shrine  of  Tammuz 
and  his  mother-mistress.  Since  the  sea  was  safe,  the  capital 
was  transferred  to  the  more  convenient  Haven  Tyre.  A  series 
of  successors  known  only  in  their  names  came  to  an  end 
through  the  assassination  of  the  last  by  Ethbaal,  the  priest  of 
Astart.  Looking  about  for  advantageous  connections,  he 
determined  to  renew  the  alliance  consecrated  by  Hiram  with 
David  and  Solomon. 

The  two  Hebrew  kingdoms  had  seen  evil  days  since  the  death 
of  Solomon.  His  descendants  ruled  one  after  the  other  a  few 
square  miles  of  rocky  soil,  and  even  thus  did  not  always  re¬ 
tain  full  independence.  The  north  was  larger,  more  fertile, 
more  on  the  line  of  the  great  road  to  Egypt,  but  it  was  cursed 
by  ever-changing  dynasties,  with  internal  wars  and  much  blood¬ 
shed.  The  accession  of  Omri  (885-874)  brought  prosperity  and 
comparative  peace. 

The  dynasty  which  Omri  founded  was  the  most  important 
in  Israel’s  checkered  history,  and  so  great  was  his  repute  that 
the  Assyrians  henceforth  gave  the  name  of  Bit  Humri,  the 
“  House  of  Omri,”  to  Israel,  long  after  the  line  was  ended. 
Ethbaal  married  his  daughter  Jezebel  to  Ahab,  Omri’s  son, 
to  seal  the  alliance.  Another  alliance  permitted  the  merchants 
of  Damascus  to  occupy  quarters  in  his  capital.  Chemosh, 


132 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


patron  deity  of  Moab,  was  angry  with  his  country,  so  Mesha 
tells  us,  and  Omri  was  permitted  to  afflict  Moab  many  days,  to 
capture  and  colonise  Medeba,  and  to  level  to  the  ground  other 
cities.  A  huge  tribute,  a  hundred  thousand  lambs  and  a 
hundred  thousand  rams,  was  paid  to  the  Israelite  monarch. 

Increased  prosperity  demanded  a  new  capital,  which  was 
found  on  the  high  isolated  hill  of  Samaria.  Cup-holes  and 
similar  markings  testified  to  the  sacred  character  of  the  summit 
on  which  Omri  erected  his  palace.  The  rock  was  carefully 
smoothed,  and  from  it  were  taken  the  massive  limestone 
blocks  which  formed  the  walls.  Great  open  courts,  around 
which  were  smaller  rooms,  furnished  a  ground  plan  modelled 
on  the  palaces  of  Kalhu  or  Babylon,  and  its  size,  an  acre  and 
a  half  in  all,  betokened  a  wealth  which  can  only  be  called  sur¬ 
prising. 

Imposing  as  it  was,  Ahab  (874-852)  and  his  Tyrian  wife  were 
not  satisfied.  Against  the  walls  and  covering  its  quarries,  down 
the  slopes  to  the  west  and  south,  extended  the  new  quarters 
with  still  finer  joints,  smoother  surfaces,  and  better  construc¬ 
tion.  On  its  southern  face  the  palace  abutted  on  the  massive 
city  wall  which  ran  along  the  cliff  and  which  had  a  gateway 
flanked  by  frowning  towers  at  the  point  where  Herod  placed 
the  gate  of  the  Romanised  Sebaste. 

Not  content  with  a  palace,  Jezebel  demanded  a  temple,  and 
the  new  capital  soon  saw  a  shrine  to  her  patron  saint,  Baal 
Melkart,  “the  Lord,  King  of  the  Tyrian  City.”  A  strange 
testimony  to  the  popularity  of  his  cult  has  been  unearthed. 
Excavators  have  uncovered  some  seventy-five  fragments  of 
jars  on  which  the  scribe  with  a  reed  pen  and  in  a  flowing  hand 
which  speaks  volumes  for  his  practice  has  jotted  down  data 
in  regard  to  the  oil  and  wine  which  have  come  in,  the  date  in 
the  ninth  or  tenth  year  (865-864),  the  notation  of  fine  oil  or 
old  wine,  the  wine  from  the  vineyard  of  the  ancient  ruin 
mound,  the  cities  or  individuals  from  which  or  whom  the  jars 
came,  and  those  to  whom  they  were  sent. 

Analysis  of  the  names  shows  many  interesting  features. 
The  national  deity  is  well  represented  by  such  names  as  Joash 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


133 


and  Jehoiada,  for  Yahweh  names  first  appear  in  Israel  during 
the  dynasty  of  Omri.  Aramaic  names  such  as  Abda  and  Sheba 
probably  are  those  of  the  traders  for  whose  sakes  Ben  Hadad  I 
had  insisted  on  Damascene  bazaars  in  Samaria.  Asa  is  the 
king  of  Judah  who  was  reigning  at  this  time,  though  we  cannot 
believe  that  the  Elisha  whose  name  we  read  was  related  to  the 
prophet  who  was  so  bitterly  opposed  to  the  dynasty. 

Our  keenest  attention  is  directed  to  the  group  which  com¬ 
memorates  the  interloping  god,  such  as  Abibaal,  who  bears  the 
name  of  Hiram’s  royal  father.  The  predominance  of  Baal 
names  is  no  accident;  the  men  of  the  court  were  deliberately 
giving  them  to  their  sons,  and  we  cannot  doubt  that  they  were 
thinking  of  Baal  Melkart  and  not  of  the  “Lord”  Yahweh.1 
Such  a  situation,  where  nearly  as  many  of  the  younger  gen¬ 
eration  were  named  from  the  Tyrian  deity  as  from  the  national 
divinity,  could  not  but  arouse  the  hostility  of  the  more  con¬ 
servative  religious  leaders,  and  the  unfortunate  enthusiasm  of 
Jezebel  for  the  god  of  her  youth  brought  against  the  house  of 
Ahab  the  continued  opposition  of  those  who  followed  the 
prophet  Elijah.2 

The  line  of  Ben  Hadad  I  was  continued  by  an  unknown  son 
and  by  a  grandson,  Ben  Hadad  II,  who  succeeded  in  building  up 
an  empire  of  so  considerable  a  size  that  thirty-two  “kings” 
were  in  his  train.  To  his  summons,  “Thy  silver  and  thy  gold 
are  mine;  thy  wives  and  thy  children  are  mine,”  Ahab  replied 
with  surprising  meekness:  “Be  it  according  to  thy  saying,  my 
lord  king,  I  am  thine  and  all  I  possess.”  Still  more  insulting 
words  met  this  abject  surrender:  “By  this  time  to-morrow  I 
shall  send  my  servants  to  thee;  they  shall  search  thy  house  and 
thy  servants’  houses  and  whatever  they  please  they  shall  take 
away.”  Ahab’s  council  of  elders  advised  resistance.  Ben 
Hadad  swore  an  oath:  “The  gods  punish  me  thus  and  yet  more 
if  the  dust  of  Samaria  shall  provide  a  handful  for  each  of  the 
host  at  my  feet.”  The  contest  at  repartee  was  fittingly  closed 

1  Yahweh  is  a  more  correct  pronunciation  of  the  name  of  the  Hebrew  deity 
than  Jehovah. 

2  Iieisner,  Harvard  Theological  Rev.,  Ill,  248  ff.;  Lyon,  ibid.,  IV,  136  ff. 


134 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


by  Ahab :  “Let  him  who  girdeth  on  his  armour  not  boast  as  he 
that  putteth  it  off/’  He  likewise  won  the  more  important 
wager  of  battle,  for  when  Ben  Hadad  celebrated  the  anticipated 
victory  by  a  drinking-bout,  the  Israelites  made  a  sudden  onset, 
and  only  a  portion  of  the  cavalry  found  escape  with  the  king. 

Ben  Hadad  returned  the  next  year,  for  his  courtiers  had  found 
the  explanation  for  his  defeat.  Yahweh  was  a  hill  god,  and 
naturally  prevailed  in  the  hill  country;  let  the  next  battle  be 
contested  in  the  plain,  and  the  Damascene  gods  would  be  suc¬ 
cessful.  Disillusion  came  at  Aphek,  where  a  crushing  defeat 
was  suffered  by  the  invaders.  Immured  in  the  city,  Ben 
Hadad  sent  ambassadors  with  sackcloth  on  their  loins  and  ropes 
around  their  necks  to  bear  the  humble  request:  “I  pray  thee, 
let  me  live.” 

In  all  his  dealings,  Ahab  showed  himself  a  man  of  strong 
common  sense.  He  realised  that  incorporation  of  Damascus  in 
Israel  was  beyond  hope,  and  he  saw  the  danger  from  Assyria. 
He  ignored  the  former  insults  and  answered,  “Is  he  yet  alive? 
He  is  my  brother.”  By  employing  this  term,  he  indicated  that 
he  had  no  intention  of  using  his  unexpected  success  to  reduce 
Ben  Hadad  to  a  confession  of  vassalage.  Peace  was  made  on 
the  basis  of  the  return  of  the  cities  taken  from  his  father,  Omri, 
and  the  concession  of  such  markets  in  Damascus  as  Ben  Hadad 
had  formerly  enjoyed  in  Samaria.  The  moderation  of  Ahab 
was  bitterly  condemned  by  the  prophetic  group  which  fol¬ 
lowed  Elijah,  but  these  men  had  no  conception  of  foreign 
affairs;  the  underlying  cause  of  the  peace  was  the  threat  of 
Assyria. 

Ample  warning  of  what  might  be  expected  had  been  afforded 
by  the  campaign  in  north  Syria.  So  when  in  854  Shalmaneser 
took  the  next  step  south,  a  coalition  had  been  brought  together 
to  block  his  advance.  Behind  the  alliance  stood  Egypt, 
whose  participation  in  the  negotiations  is  indicated  by  the  find¬ 
ing  of  the  name  of  Osorkon  II  in  Ahab’s  palace,  but  the  Egyp¬ 
tian  contribution  was  negligible,  a  mere  thousand  men.  The 
Assyrians  knew  well  enough  that  Egypt  was  a  broken  reed,  for 
they  list  it  far  to  the  end  of  the  roll.  The  headship  is  assigned 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


135 


to  Adad-idri,  that  is,  Hadadezer,  who  seems  to  have  ascended 
the  throne  of  Damascus  through  the  deposition  of  the  ruler 
defeated  by  Ahab.1  According  to  the  Assyrian  statistics, 
his  troops  consisted  of  twelve  hundred  chariots,  the  same  num¬ 
ber  of  cavalry,  and  twenty  thousand  foot.  Irhuleni  of  Hamath 
comes  next,  with  seven  hundred  chariots  and  cavalry  and  ten 
thousand  foot. 

Somewhat  to  our  surprise,  the  third  place  is  taken  by  Ahabbu 
of  Sirla,  or  Ahab  of  Israel.  The  sacred  book  does  not  mention 
this  particular  incident,  though  our  knowledge  of  it  explains 
the  whole  foreign  policy  of  Ahab.  Exaggerated  the  two 
thousand  chariots  and  the  ten  thousand  soldiers  assigned  to 
him  may  be,  they  do  prove  the  relative  position  of  Israel. 
Recent  fashion  has  tended  to  emphasise  the  smallness  of 
Israel  as  compared  with  the  historical  world-powers,  and  in 
especial  with  Assyria  or  Egypt.  A  different  standard  of  com¬ 
parison  is  required;  we  do  not,  for  example,  compare  Athens 
with  Persia  or  Rome,  but  with  Sparta  or  Thebes.  If  in  the 
same  manner  we  compare  Israel  with  the  other  states  of  Syria, 
we  reach  another  conclusion.  Ahab  held  high  rank  in  the 
coalition  which  gathered  at  Qarqara,  and  he  is  assigned  the 
largest  number  of  chariots;  a  rather  remarkable  statement, 
since  the  Biblical  narrative  of  the  war  with  Ben  Hadad  implies 
that  Israel  was  particularly  deficient  in  this  respect. 

Among  the  less-important  nationalities  which  sent  contin¬ 
gents  to  this  epoch-making  contest,  we  have  five  hundred  men 
from  Que,  a  clear  indication  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  Cili- 
cian  plain  were  becoming  alarmed  at  the  closeness  of  the  As¬ 
syrian  approach  to  their  borders.  Several  were  sent  by  the 
various  Phoenician  states:  ten  chariots  and  ten  thousand  foot 
from  Irqanata,  two  hundred  from  Mattanbaal  of  Arvad,  the 
same  from  Usanata,  and  ten  thousand  from  Adonibaal  of 
Shiana,  though  these  estimates  are  far  too  high,  since  no  city- 
state  of  this  period  could  muster  such  a  force.  A  thousand 
camels  were  contributed  by  Gindibu,  the  Arab,  first  indication 
that  the  true  Arabs  were  following  the  Aramaeans  in  their  in- 

1  Luckenbill,  AJSL.,  XXVII,  267  ff. 


136 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


vasion  of  the  Fertile  Crescent.  The  list  ends  with  the  ten 
thousand  foot  of  Baasha,  the  son  of  Rehob,  the  Ammonite. 
Properly  interpreted,  the  hitherto  dry  statistics  enlighten  many 
a  dark  page  of  history. 

No  difficulty  was  experienced  in  looting  the  frontier  cities  of 
Irhuleni  and  in  burning  the  palaces.  Parga,  for  example,  stood 
on  a  low  artificial  mound,  defended  by  a  stream  and  by  high 
battlemented  towers  above  whose  walls  appeared  to  the  way¬ 
farer  tall  buildings  with  flat  roofs  and  many  windows.  The 
assault  was  launched  under  the  protection  of  a  small  movable 
fort  and  was  assisted  by  a  movable  ram,  or  rather  sow,  with 
staring  eyes,  projecting  snout,  and  heavy  necklace,  moved  for¬ 
ward  by  a  kneeling  man,  behind  whom  stood  archers  encased 
in  the  rear.  The  defenders  were  unusually  brave,  for  they 
fought  from  the  open  space  in  front  as  well  as  behind  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  their  ramparts. 

Without  meeting  open  resistance,  the  invaders  continued 
up  the  Orontes  valley  through  orchards  laden  with  figs  to 
Qarqara.  The  fort  was  small  and  its  mound  not  particularly 
elevated,  but  its  battlemented  towers  were  much  above  the 
average  height  and  its  position  strategic,  for  its  loss  would  per¬ 
mit  direct  attack  on  Hamath.  The  king  ensconced  himself  in 
a  tent  set  up  on  a  rock  near  the  river.  The  battle  did  not  be¬ 
gin  auspiciously  for  the  Assyrians,  for  the  sculptures  make  a 
very  unusual  admission  when  they  show  the  troops  of  Hamath, 
archers  with  pointed  helmets  or  in  chariots  much  like  the  As¬ 
syrian,  pressing  over  the  Assyrian  dead  to  meet  the  main  forces 
of  the  enemy.  The  written  records  claim  a  complete  victory. 
The  blood  of  the  vanquished  was  made  to  flow  over  the  passes 
of  the  district,  the  field  was  too  narrow  to  throw  down  their 
bodies,  the  broad  plain  alone  sufficed  for  their  burial,  their 
corpses  blocked  the  Orontes  like  a  dam.  The  number  of  the 
slain  grew  with  the  passage  of  time,  from  fourteen  thousand  to 
twenty  thousand  five  hundred,  to  twenty-five  thousand,  to 
twenty-nine  thousand.  Pursuit  was  continued  from  Qarqara 
to  the  Orontes — and  the  Monolith  Inscription  comes  to  a  sud¬ 
den  end. 


Fig.  75.  THE  MOUND  AT  HAMATH. 


Fig.  70.  WATER-WHEEL  IN  THE  ORONTES  AT  IIAMATII. 


138 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


o 


Irhuleni  took  refuge  in  his  double- walled  fortress,  with  its 
gable-roofed  houses,  where  he  had  made  himself  comfortable 
on  a  couch  of  Assyrian  form,  with  the  flapper  and  shawl  of  the 
eunuch  servant,  and  with  the  long  fringed  robe  and  drapery 
of  an  Assyrian  monarch.  These  could  not  protect  him  from 
the  Assyrian  fury,  and  he,  too,  was  reduced  to  ask  quarter. 
He  was  permitted  to  retain  his  Assyrian  dress,  even  to  the 
pointed  helmet,  provided  he  bowed  down  in  worship,  and  the 
youthful  prince  destined  to  be  his  successor  was  allowed  to 
approach  in  his  chariot  and  surrounded  by  his  fellows;  the 
common  people  were  treated  more  roughly,  their  clothes 
stripped  off,  their  necks  inserted  in  yokes,  their  women  in  too 
scanty  clothing  bewailing  their  disgrace  with  hand  raised  to 
head.  Even  to  Assyrian  monarchs,  the  sins  of  kings  were  not 
as  serious  as  those  of  the  ignoble  crowd ! 

The  defection  of  Irhuleni  had  not  destroyed  the  alliance,  and 
the  year  846  found  the  Assyrians  again  fighting  its  members  in 
central  Syria.  The  “numberless  levy  of  the  troops  from  the 
whole  of  his  wide-extending  dominions  was  called  out/’  to 
the  number  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand,  a  maximum 
for  the  size  of  Assyrian  armies  and  an  indication  of  the  gravity 
of  the  situation. 

Conditions  had  become  more  propitious  by  842.  At  the 
instigation  of  the  Hebrew  prophet  Elisha,  the  reigning  king  of 
Damascus  had  been  smothered  while  sick,  and  Hazael,  the 
usurping  son  of  a  nobody,  had  taken  his  place.1  The  con¬ 
federacy  completely  broke  down,  and  the  war  with  Israel  en¬ 
tered  a  more  active  phase  with  the  attempt  of  Jehoram  to 
win  back  Ramoth  Gilead.  This  time  Shalmaneser  met  with  no 
resistance  until  he  entered  the  territories  of  Damascus.  Where 
the  Barada  breaks  through  the  Lebanon,  under  Mount  Senir,2 
Hazael  made  his  stand,  but  his  fortified  camp  was  stormed,  the 
orchards  which  filled  the  fertile  valley  were  felled,  and  the 
Assyrians  appeared  before  Damascus.  The  walls  were  too 
strong  for  assault,  and  Shalmaneser  had  not  the  patience  for 
a  formal  siege,  so  was  forced  to  content  himself  with  a  plunder- 
1 II  Kings  8 :  7  ff.  2  Deut.  3  :  9;  I  Chron.  5:23;  Ezek.  27:5;  Cant.  4 :  8. 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


139 


mg  raid  into  the  Hauran  mountains  to  the  east  and  south, 
whose  rich  volcanic  soil  made  it,  then  as  now,  the  granary  of 
the  Syrian  area. 

Shalmaneser  then  struck  back  to  the  coast,  through  that 
plain  of  Esdraelon  which  has  always  been  the  direct  route  from 
Damascus  and  the  Hauran  to  the  sea.  On  a  projecting  cliff 
which  he  calls  “Baal’s  Head,”  and  which  may  well  be  intended 
for  the  projecting  headland  of  Carmel  where  Elijah  had  con¬ 
tended  with  the  priests  of  the  Tyrian  Baal  a  few  years  before, 
he  affixed  a  stele.  Shortly  after,  he  received  tribute  from  the 
Tyrians,  the  Sidonians,  and  from  Iaua  of  Bit  Humri,  or,  being 
interpreted,  from  Jehu  of  the  house  of  Omri ! 

Important  changes  had  indeed  taken  place  in  Israel  in  the 
twelve-year  period  which  had  elapsed  since  Ahab  had  faced  the 
Assyrians  on  the  stricken  field.  After  Ahab’s  death  before 
Ramoth  Gilead,  his  weakly  son,  Ahaziah,  lasted  but  two  years 
(852-850),  and  in  want  of  issue  was  followed  by  his  brother 
Jehoram  (850-842).  The  long  reign  of  Jehoshaphat  (875-851) 
came  to  an  end  the  next  year,  and  another  Jehoram  (851-843) 
ruled  Judah.  Jehoshaphat  had  been  a  loyal  vassal  of  the 
north,  as  the  name  of  his  son  bore  witness. 

Mesha  of  Moab  made  his  revolt  good  on  the  death  of  Ahab. 
The  lost  Medeba  was  soon  recovered.  Baal  Meon  had  become 
so  Israelite  that  a  citizen  who  bore  its  ethnic  had  been  promi¬ 
nent  at  the  court  of  Ahab;  now  Mesha  restored  it  and  made  it 
a  reservoir.  From  of  old  the  men  of  Gad  had  occupied  Ataroth, 
and  the  king  of  Israel  had  rebuilt  it  for  his  own  purposes; 
Mesha  took  it  by  assault,  made  its  inhabitants  a  gazing  stock 
to  his  god  Chemosh  and  the  men  of  Moab,  carried  off  the  altar 
hearth  and  dragged  it  before  Chemosh,  and  settled  men  in  the 
city.  Then  said  Chemosh,  “Go,  take  Nebo  from  Israel”;  so 
Mesha  went  by  night  and  fought  against  it  from  break  of  day 
to  noon.  The  whole  of  the  population,  seven  thousand  men, 
besides  the  women,  the  slaves,  and  the  resident  aliens,  were 
devoted  to  Ashtor-Chemosh,  that  is,  were  ceremonially  slaugh¬ 
tered  before  the  deity.  The  vessels  of  Yahweh  were  made  a 
spoil.  Jahaz  had  been  used  as  a  base  by  the  Israelite  king  in 


140 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


his  warfare  against  the  near-by  capital,  Daibon;  Chemosh 
drove  him  out  from  before  the  face  of  Mesha  with  the  aid  of 
the  two  hundred  chiefs  of  Moab.  Walls  and  citadels  were 
built  by  the  Israelite  prisoners,  the  ruined  cities  were  restored, 
the  Arnon  highway  constructed.1 

Mesha  declared  that  he  saw  his  pleasure  on  Omri’s  son  and 
on  his  house,  so  that  Israel  perished  with  an  everlasting  destruc¬ 
tion.  Those  who  recognise  the  uniqueness  of  this  record  in  a 
dialect  of  Hebrew  will  be  selfishly  thankful  that  he  caused  it 
to  be  inscribed  before  the  episode  was  completed.  Jehoram 
had  no  intention  of  allowing  the  contest  to  go  by  default. 
Augmented  by  the  troops  of  his  namesake  of  Judah,  the  army 
marched  along  the  wilderness  route  into  Edom,  where  they  were 
joined  by  the  subject  king  of  that  country.  After  much  suf¬ 
fering  from  want  of  water,  Moab  was  reached.  The  Moabites 
were  worsted  in  a  pitched  battle,  the  cities  were  beaten  down, 
the  arable  land  covered  with  stones,  the  fountains  stopped  up, 
the  trees  felled.  Kirhareseth  was  besieged  by  the  slingers  until 
only  ruins  were  left.  Mesha  with  seven  hundred  picked  men 
attempted  to  break  through  into  Edom  but  failed.  As  a  last 
resort,  he  adopted  the  desperate  expedient  of  offering  up  his 
eldest  son  upon  the  wall.  Terrified  by  this  awful  sight,  which 
would  bring  upon  them  the  immediate  wrath  of  the  local 
deity,  the  invaders  hurriedly  decamped.2 

Jehoram  of  Judah,  as  was  fitting  a  vassal,  had  married  Atha- 
liah,  a  daughter  of  Ahab.  His  Israelite  connections  availed 
him  little,  for  after  the  failure  of  the  Moabite  expedition  the 
Edomites  revolted,  and  a  night  raid  with  his  chariots  to  Seir 
did  not  restore  his  control.  Libnah  likewise  fell  away  to  the 
Philistines,  and  the  Arabs  of  the  Sinaitic  peninsula  were  even 
able  to  make  an  inroad  as  far  as  Jerusalem,  where  they  plun¬ 
dered  the  palace  and  took  all  the  royal  family  but  his  youngest 
son,  Ahaziah.  It  was  this  son,  named  from  his  cousin  of 
Israel,  who  shortly  succeeded  (843-842). 

The  usurpation  of  Hazael  seemed  to  offer  an  excellent  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  Israel  to  recover  Ramoth  Gilead.  The  city  was 

1  Moabite  Stone.  2 II  Kings  3. 


Fig.  77.  BLACK  OBELISK  OF  SHALMANESER  III. 

The  second  row  represents  Israelites,  whose  Icing,  Jehu,  is 
seen  bowing  before  the  conqueror  to  the  left. 

(Cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


141 


successfully  taken,  but  Jehoram  was  wounded,  and  retired  to 
Jezreel  to  recuperate.  Danger  from  Damascus  was  still  immi¬ 
nent,  and  Jehoram  left  behind  him  a  garrison  under  his  best 
general,  Jehu.  Suddenly  there  appeared  a  member  of  the  pro¬ 
phetic  guild  who  had  been  commissioned  by  Elisha  to  anoint 
him  king.  Driving  furiously  to  Jezreel,  Jehu  met  Jehoram 
and  Ahaziah  coming  forth  to  meet  him,  shot  the  former  and 
pursued  the  latter  to  Megiddo,  where  the  wounded  Judaean 
died.  The  body  of  Jehoram  was  cast  into  the  field  of  Naboth, 
in  deliberate  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  by  Elijah.  Jezebel 
arrayed  herself  in  her  best  as  for  a  sacrifice,  hurled  reproaches 
at  her  would-be  murderer,  and  met  her  death  at  the  hands  of 
her  treacherous  eunuch  attendants  with  the  bravery  to  be  ex¬ 
pected  from  such  a  queen. 

Aided  by  the  Kenite  Jehonadab,  whose  whole  family  fol¬ 
lowed  the  custom  of  their  ancestor  Rechab  and  refused  to  drink 
wine  or  live  in  a  house,  Jehu  arrived  at  Samaria,  pretended  to 
be  a  zealous  worshipper  of  Baal  Melkart,  assembled  the  dev¬ 
otees  of  the  foreign  god,  and  put  them  to  death.  The  shrine 
was  defiled  and  Yahweh  reigned  supreme,  if  not  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  at  least  in  the  palace  of  the  king. 

The  drastic  wiping  out  of  the  two  royal  families  had  lessened 
the  number  of  his  enemies,  but  the  position  of  Jehu  was  still 
insecure.  Tyre  was  of  necessity  opposed  to  his  rule,  and 
Judah  was  no  longer  even  a  nominal  vassal.  With  the  manly 
spirit  of  her  mother  Jezebel,  Athaliah  took  over  the  inheritance 
of  her  murdered  son,  and  Baal’s  house  received  the  dedications 
hitherto  owed  to  the  Yahweh  temple.  There  were  many  ad¬ 
vantages,  so  it  seemed  to  the  short-sighted  Jehu,  in  securing 
the  support  of  the  powerful  intruder.  As  he  passed  through 
Israelite  territory  Jehu  appeared  before  him,  and  the  reliefs 
of  the  Black  Obelisk  immortalise  the  Hebrew  ruler  as  he  kissed 
the  ground  before  Shalmaneser  and  his  eunuchs.  His  beard 
is  short  and  rounded  in  the  ancient  fashion,  a  liberty  cap  is  on 
his  head.  An  almost  sleeveless  jacket  and  a  long  fringed  skirt 
with  girdle  are  all  he  wears.  A  group  of  Israelites  is  next  de¬ 
picted.  Over  the  undress  costume  of  Jehu  they  have  draped 


142 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


a  long  robe  open  at  the  left,  where  a  bit  of  the  skirt  fringe  is 
allowed  to  appear,  while  the  end  of  the  robe  is  thrown  over  the 
right  shoulder  in  a  shawl-like  effect.  They  bring  huge  ingots 
of  unworked  metal,  gold,  silver,  and  lead,  small  golden  pails 
of  not  inartistic  design,  bowls,  cups,  and  ladles.  On  the  backs 
of  some  are  sacks  filled  with  precious  objects,  one  holds  a 
sceptre,  another  raises  aloft  a  tall  thin  drinking-goblet,  others 
bear  bundles  of  weapons,  and  the  last  carries  on  his  head  a  flat 
basket  filled  with  fruit. 

Following  the  submission  of  Jehu,  the  Obelisk  pictures 
“  tribute”  of  Egypt.  Men  whose  only  dress  is  a  fillet  and  a 
short  tunic,  belted  high  and  fringed,  and  with  short  square 
beards,  conduct  two  double-humped  camels.  The  sculptor 
has  made  a  special  effort  to  depict  a  bull  different  from  the 
variety  with  which  he  is  acquainted,  stockier  and  without  the 
familiar  hump.  His  rhinoceros  is  merely  a  bull  with  a  single 
horn.  The  gazelle  is  probably  intended  to  represent  the  oryx 
which  gave  its  name  to  an  Egyptian  nome.  The  elephant  is 
rather  well  done,  and  leaves  no  doubt  that  we  are  dealing  with 
the  African  species;  but  the  monkeys  which  follow  are  the 
crudest  imitations  of  the  truly  lifelike  specimens  in  the  palace 
of  Ashur-nasir-apal.  “ Tribute’ ’  of  course  they  were  not  in 
any  sense.  The  nearness  of  Shalmaneser  to  the  Egyptian 
frontier  had  caused  the  Egyptian  ruler,  Takelet  II  or  Shishak 
III,  to  send  gifts  of  greeting.  Doubtless  somewhere  in  his 
records,  did  we  have  them  all,  we  would  find  mention  of  the 
“  tribute  ”  presented  by  his  vassals,  the  Assyrians. 

Damascus,  though  badly  shaken,  was  still  unconquered, 
and  in  838  Shalmaneser  made  a  last  effort  to  complete  the  re¬ 
duction  of  central  Syria.  Tyre,  Sidon,  and  Byblus  furnished 
fresh  proof  that  the  Phoenicians  were  prepared  to  pay  any 
reasonable  price  if  their  control  of  the  trade  routes  should  be 
free  from  interference.  Hazael  was  a  different  proposition, 
and  Shalmaneser  must  content  himself  with  placing  on  a  bit 
of  black  marble  the  ludicrously  inappropriate  inscription : 
“  Booty  from  the  temple  of  the  god  Sher  of  Malaha,  residence 
of  Hazael  of  Damascus,  which  Shalmaneser,  son  of  Ashur- 


Fig.  78.  THE  SYRIAN  GATES,  A  VILLAGE  OF  A  SINGLE  LONG 

STREET.  (BEILAN.) 


* 


Fig.  79.  WASHING  OUT  SILVER  AT  THE  “BULGARIAN  MINES,”  WHICH 
MADE  THE  WEALTH  OF  TARSHISH  OR  TARSUS. 


FIRST  CONTACTS  WITH  ISRAEL 


143 


nasir-apal,  king  of  Assyria,  brought  within  the  walls  of  the 
city  of  Ashur.” 

The  complete  failure  of  Assyria  in  the  west  meant  ruin  for 
those  who  had  espoused  her  cause.  Freed  of  fear  from  the 
north,  Hazael  again  began  to  harass  Jehu.  The  whole  of  the 
east  Jordan  country,  Gilead  and  Bashan,  the  tribal  territories 
of  Gad,  Manasseh,  and  Benjamin,  clear  to  Aroer  on  the  Arnon 
which  a  few  short  years  ago  Mesha  had  claimed  for  his  own, 
fell  into  his  hands.1  With  bitter  wrath  Amos  condemns  Da¬ 
mascus.  For  three  rebellions  of  Damascus  and  for  four, 
Yahweh  will  not  turn  away  his  punishment,  for  they  threshed 
Gilead  with  threshing  implements  of  iron.  Therefore  will 
Yahweh  send  a  fire  into  the  house  of  Hazael  and  it  shall  devour 
the  palaces  of  Ben  Hadad.  The  bars  which  close  the  gate  of 
Damascus  will  be  broken,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Aven  valley, 
Hollow  Syria,  will  be  cut  off.2 

Jehu  was  more  successful  in  the  southern  kingdom.  Atha- 
liah  (842-836)  by  her  insistence  on  the  Baal  cult  had  alienated 
the  priesthood  of  her  adopted  country.  The  infant  son  of 
Ahaziah  had  been  saved  by  his  aunt  Jehosheba  from  the 
slaughter  of  the  seed  royal,  and  had  now  reached  the  age  of 
seven.  Her  husband,  Jehoiada,  the  chief  priest  of  Yahweh, 
persuaded  the  foreign  body-guard  of  Cretan  mercenaries  to 
support  the  legitimate  claimant,  Jehoash,  and  Athaliah  was 
slain  as  she  attempted  to  penetrate  the  cordon  around  the 
temple.  The  enraged  populace  sacked  the  Baal  temple,  the 
Tyrian  priest  Mattan  was  killed,  and  Yahweh  was  acknowl¬ 
edged  sole  God  in  Judah,  as  he  had  already  been  in  Israel. 

The  Assyrians  waited  fourteen  years  before  they  made  any 
attempt  to  chastise  the  presumption  of  the  men  of  Que  who 
took  part  in  the  battle  of  Qarqara,  and  it  was  not  until  three 
years  later  (837)  that  they  enjoyed  any  success.  Then  they 
marched  through  Nairi  to  Tunni,  a  mountain  of  silver  and  of 
various  rocks,  took  cut  stone  from  the  quarries,  and  left  in 
return  a  stele.  They  ended  with  Tabal,  where  twenty-four 
kinglets  handed  over  their  quota,  and  with  Que,  where  the 

2  Amos  1 :  3  ff. 


1 II  Kings  10  :  32  ff. 


144 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


lands  of  Kate  were  ravaged.  The  next  year  Uetash,  the  fort 
of  Lala  of  Melidia,  was  assaulted,  and  kings  of  Tabal  again 
presented  their  tribute. 

Que  was  entered  through  the  Amanus  Gates  in  834,  and 
Timur  was  taken  from  Kate  who  was  shortly  after  deposed  by 
Tulli.  The  new  ruler  surrendered  when  he  saw  his  fort  of 
Tanakun  in  Assyrian  possession,  and  was  supplanted  by  Kirri, 
brother  of  the  former  king.  The  inhabitants  of  Lamena 
found  refuge  in  the  hills.  The  year  833  closed  with  the  cap¬ 
ture  of  Tarzi,  or  Tarsus,  which  at  this  time  was  taking  the 
place  of  Mallus  as  the  central  point  in  the  Cilician  plain,  as 
the  terminus  of  the  great  route  which  led  through  the  Cilician 
Gates  to  the  plateau  of  Asia  Minor,  and  as  the  outlet  of  the 
famous  Hittite  silver-mines  to  the  north  of  the  mountains 
whose  wealth  was  to  make  the  name  of  Tarshish  world-famous. 

The  failure  of  Shalmaneser  to  follow  up  the  raid  of  842  in 
Palestine  led  to  the  conviction  in  north  Syria  that  Assyria  had 
shot  her  bolt.  Agusi  took  a  hostile  attitude,  and  on  his  return 
from  Cilicia  Shalmaneser  captured  Muru,  one  of  Arame’s  forts, 
but  he  himself  was  untouched.  The  raid  of  832  into  Haldia 
was  likewise  a  failure,  and  Sardurish  induced  the  Hattinians  to 
dethrone  their  pro-Assyrian  prince  Lubarna  in  favour  of  a 
usurper  named  Surri.  Surri  died  a  natural  death,  which  the 
historian  ascribes  to  the  offended  majesty  of  Ashur,  and  his 
erstwhile  followers  handed  over  his  sons  and  accomplices  to 
Daian  Ashur  for  impalement.  Sasi  declared  his  adherence 
to  the  Assyrian  cause  and  was  made  king,  subject  to  heavy 
tribute  of  metals  and  ivory.  The  royal  figure  was  installed 
in  the  temple  at  Kunulua,  and  Syria  ceased  to  interest  the 
Assyrians. 


CHAPTER  XII 


THE  GREAT  REVOLT 

The  military  machine  constructed  by  Tukulti  Urta  and 
Ashur-nasir-apal  remained  in  good  working  order,  and  the  new 
territory  opened  up  to  Assyrian  influence  was  notable.  Baby¬ 
lonia  was  brought  under  effective  control  and  a  portion  of  her 
,  territory  annexed.  Assyrian  armies  penetrated  far  within 
the  Median  mountains,  and  the  failure  to  fix  the  frontier  per¬ 
manently  was  due  more  to  the  support  offered  by  Haldia 
than  to  the  resistant  qualities  of  the  tribesmen  themselves. 
Haldia  was  the  great  problem  with  which  Assyria  was  con¬ 
fronted,  and  Daian  Ashur  grappled  with  it  to  the  best  of  his 
ability;  if  he  had  not  checked  its  advance,  it  was  not  because 
he  had  feared  to  lead  his  armies  within  its  confines  and  to  the 
very  gates  of  the  capital.  His  lack  of  success  was  one  more 
illustration  of  the  time-honoured  principle  that  Semites  with 
their  desert  ancestry  never  succeeded  in  the  mountains. 

Shalmaneser’s  most  serious  mistake  was  in  following  his 
father’s  example  in  the  west.  The  attempt  on  Que  was  a  new 
development  of  that  policy,  and  could  be  still  less  justified, 
for  the  Cilician  plain  was  in  no  sense  an  integral  part  of  the 
territory  which  nature  seemed  to  have  destined  for  the  Assyr¬ 
ian  empire.  Once  in  Syria,  it  must  be  granted,  there  was  no 
strategic  barrier  fixed  by  nature  until  the  desert  northeast  of 
Egypt  was  reached.  With  the  growing  menace  of  Haldia  so 
close  at  hand,  it  would  have  been  the  part  of  wisdom  to  have 
left  Damascus,  Hamath,  and  Israel  to  their  mutually  destruc¬ 
tive  wars. 

Despite  the  successes  of  the  reign,  no  small  portion  of  the 
territory  acquired  was  still  autonomous,  under  princes  of 
doubtful  loyalty,  ready  to  rise  at  the  first  suggestion  of  outside 
aid,  or,  if  themselves  loyal  at  heart,  liable  to  deposition  when 

145 


146 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  anti- Assyrian  party  gained  the  upper  hand.  Within  this 
ring  of  client  states  the  number  of  provinces  had  largely  in¬ 
creased,  though  we  cannot  say  exactly  how  many  had  been 
added.  All  the  palace  officials  were  nominally  in  charge  of  a 
province,  though  the  turtanu  Daian  Ashur,  for  example,  could 
have  spent  little  time  in  Harran;  the  territories  governed  by 
the  others  cannot  be  precisely  defined.  At  the  head  of  the 
named  provinces  was  Nasibina,  still  unconquered  in  the  days 
of  Shalmaneser’s  grandfather;  it  doubtless  owed  this  position 
to  the  fact  that  its  governor  was  also  in  charge  of  Ashur. 
After  Kalhu,  the  list  breaks  off  and  we  have  only  the  lesser 
provinces,  Ahi  Zuhina,  or  Arzuhina,  Nairi,  Amat,  Kirruri, 
Ninua,  Kakzu,  Arrapha,  and  Mazamua.  Nimit  Ishtar  is 
testified  to  by  an  eponym  stele,  and  Tushhan  appears  as  early 
as  the  reign  of  his  father.  Others  doubtless  are  hidden  among 
the  provinces  of  the  other  palace  officials;  among  these  we 
may  perhaps  place  some  or  all  the  provinces  listed  in  the  re¬ 
volt  :  Shibaniba,  Shimu,  Shibhinish,  Parnunna,  Kurban,  Arbela. 
Nimit  Ishtar  had  been  enlarged  into  Rasappa  and  Kutmuh 
into  Tille,  while  the  name  Nairi  had  been  transferred  from 
Tushhan  together  with  two  of  its  subdistricts,  Tidu  and  Sinabu, 
to  a  new  province  which  also  included  Suhni,  Alzi,  and  the 
capital  Mallanu. 

Placed  on  the  map,  Ashur  represented  the  original  Assyria, 
Nineveh  and  Kalhu  the  Triangle  proper,  Kakzu  and  Arbela 
its  continuation  east  of  the  Upper  Zab,  Arzuhina  and  Arrapha 
the  debatable  land  extending  to  the  Ialman  hills,  Mazamua 
what  remained  of  Ashur-nasir-apal’s  conquests  in  the  moun¬ 
tains  due  east.  Shibaniba,  Kirruri,  Rimusi,  Shibhinish,  Par¬ 
nunna,  Kurban,  Amat,  Shimu,  formed  a  series  of  provinces 
northeast  of  the  Triangle,  illy  located  as  yet  and  small  in  size 
but  of  the  utmost  importance  because  they  alone  held  off  the 
warlike  mountaineers  from  too  close  approach  to  the  capitals. 
Tille,  Nasibina,  Tushhan,  and  Nairi  blocked  the  exit  from  the 
Armenian  mountains.  Strictly  speaking,  these  two  groups 
were  primarily  of  a  defensive  character,  as  their  restricted 
area  shows.  On  the  other  hand,  the  two  huge  provinces  of 


THE  GREAT  REVOLT 


147 


Harran  and  Rasappa  were  not  merely  the  result  of  their  loca¬ 
tion  on  the  Mesopotamian  plains;  they  needed  little  military 
supervision  because  they  were  protected  by  the  mountain 
outposts. 

Whatever  our  doubts  as  to  the  exact  time  certain  sections 
were  given  the  provincial  form  of  government,  it  is  evident 
that  the  reign  of  Shalmaneser  represents  the  great  period  of 
incorporation.  It  was  only  his  due  that  with  his  reign  begins 
the  so-called  Assyrian  Chronicle.  What  we  really  have  is  a 
chronological  table  in  three  columns:  in  the  first  the  official 
who  gave  his  name  to  the  year;  in  the  second  the  office  he 
held  or  the  province  he  governed ;  in  the  third  the  most  impor¬ 
tant  event  of  the  year,  generally  a  military  expedition.  It  is 
the  backbone  of  our  chronology,  and  from  its  seemingly  dry 
statistics  we  may  learn  the  actual  working  of  the  provincial 
system  and  discover  many  a  clew  to  the  more  formal  history.1 

A  curious  silence  as  to  building  operations  is  noted  in  his 
annals;  nevertheless,  Shalmaneser  built  much.  Regularly  he 
marched  forth  from  Nineveh,  but  each  year  saw  the  booty  de¬ 
posited  in  Ashur.  He  makes  much  of  his  kindness  to  the  old 
sacred  city,  and  mentions  earlier  royal  builders,  but  ignores 
completely  what  his  own  father  had  done.  Through  the  two 
long  reigns,  a  space  of  sixty  years,  Ashur  was  completely  re¬ 
made. 

Important  improvements  were  made  in  the  two  earliest 
temples,  those  of  Ishtar  and  of  Ashur.  For  Ashur  the  temple 
tower  near  by  was  entirely  rebuilt,  a  huge  edifice  whose  mass 
has  been  estimated  at  six  million  bricks,  each  as  large  as  eight 
of  ours.  At  the  corners  was  a  foundation  deposit,  between  two 
layers  of  reeds.  A  thousand  beads  of  glass,  round  and  bright 
blue,  or  cylindrical  with  layers  in  light  and  dark,  a  hundred 
blanks  of  agate  or  quartz,  a  thousand  shells,  mostly  of  the 
snail,  lead  and  iron  foil  with  incised  dedications  to  Ashur, 
formed  the  deposit. 

1  Edition,  JAOS.,  XXXIV,  344  ff.;  for  the  provincial  system,  “Assyrian  Gov¬ 
ernment  of  Dependencies/ ’  Amer.  Political  Science  Rev.,  XII,  63  ff.;  Forrer,  Die 
Provinzeinteilung  des  assyrischen  Reiches,  1920. 


148 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


So  ruinous  was  the  Anu-Adad  temple  that  through  long 
stretches  the  very  walls  could  not  be  traced.  Where  possible, 
Shalmaneser  built  on  the  older  foundations  and  reused  the 
inscribed  pavement  stones  and  bricks  which  bore  the  name  of 
Tiglath  Pileser  I.  Where  the  workmen  cut  through  the  adobe 
walls  of  his  predecessors,  the  marks  of  the  picks  can  still  be 
traced,  sharply  distinguished  from  those  made  by  the  modern 
implements.  When  forced  to  use  new  materials,  the  work 
of  Shalmaneser  is  much  inferior,  but  the  decline  is  best  shown 
by  the  difference  in  size.  On  every  side  the  enclosed  limits 
shrank,  and  the  temple  towers  now  covered  but  two-fifths  of 
the  ground  occupied  by  those  of  Tiglath  Pileser.  Some  im¬ 
provements  are  to  be  attributed  to  Shalmaneser:  the  hundred- 
foot  well  in  the  courtyard,  the  inscribed  basalt  door-sockets, 
the  cedar  beams,  the  bronze  covering  for  a  gate  whose  proces¬ 
sion  of  officials  is  so  like  that  of  the  better-known  pictures. 
New  to  Assyrian  temples  was  the  device  of  the  triple  indenta¬ 
tion  which  adorned  the  temple  towers,  and  the  ground  plan 
of  the  double  temple  where  the  broad  room  precedes  the  long, 
for  the  future  to  be  the  most  holy  place  and  the  abode  of  the 
cult  statue.  At  the  southeast  corner  a  paved  road  led  to  the 
isolated  gate  where  justice  was  executed,  as  we  may  judge 
from  the  legal  tablets  found  within.1 

The  new  circuit  of  the  land  walls  began  with  the  ruined  Adad 
tower  of  the  temple.  The  inner  wall  swung  around  the  re¬ 
stored  New  Palace  terrace  of  Tukulti  Urta  I,  which  thus  be¬ 
came  a  huge  bastion  overlooking  the  weak  corner.  The 
Gate  of  the  Metal  Worker  had  already  been  given  higher  doors 
of  wood  and  had  been  plated  with  copper,  some  of  which  has 
survived.  While  other  gates  were  double,  this  was  triple,  and 
the  whole  gate  structure  was  askew  to  the  wall,  a  narrow  en¬ 
trance  with  towers  on  either  side  and  a  ramp  across  the  moat. 
Round  inscribed  plates  of  lead,  two  hundred  pounds  in  weight, 
were  foundations  to  the  inscribed  sockets  of  basalt  on  which 
rested  the  bronze  shod  posts  of  the  gates,  and  around  were 
packed  small  stones.  The  roofs  were  of  cedar,  and  some  of  it 

1  Andrae,  Anu-Adad-Tempel,  39  ff. 


THE  GREAT  REVOLT 


149 


has  been  preserved  hardly  scorched.  Access  to  the  roof  was 
by  ramp  or  stairway. 

Bricks  inserted  in  the  walls  of  the  inner  gate  picture  the  low 
rounded  ramp,  the  arched  gateway,  the  battlemented  and  over¬ 
hanging  towers  on  either  side.  The  valves  of  the  gate  were 


Map  5.  GATE  OF  THE  METAL  WORKER  AT  ASHUR. 

covered  with  copper,  fastened  with  bronze  nails  and  with 
iron.  Decoration  was  of  various  coloured  knobs,  some  enam¬ 
elled  in  colours,  some  in  the  native  clay  but  with  inscriptions, 
which  were  pressed  into  the  wall.  One  was  elaborately  deco¬ 
rated  with  a  circle  of  alternate  buds  and  fruit  of  the  pome¬ 
granate  in  gray-blue,  white,  yellow,  and  red,  in  another  the 
colour  scheme  was  black,  white,  and  black.  A  peculiar  adorn¬ 
ment  inserted  in  the  wall  consisted  of  rude  hands  with  the 
five  fingers  close  together.  The  wall  decorations  showed  a 


150 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


colour  scheme  of  a  delicacy  one  can  scarcely  credit  as  Assyrian. 
The  battlements  themselves  were  of  enamelled  bricks  of  pale 
blue  with  light-yellow  edging;  below  was  a  double  row  of  the 
blue  bricks  edged  on  top  and  bottom  in  yellow,  and  between 
was  a  course  with  the  herring-bone  pattern  in  alternate  black 
and  cream. 

Shalmaneser  tells  us  that  he  prepared  an  image  of  his  majesty 
and  placed  it  in  this  gate;  in  the  second  gate  room,  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  passage,  the  statues  were  found.  A  fragmentary 
standing  figure  in  the  round  is  closely  modelled  on  the  similar 
statue  of  his  father.  The  seated  figure  in  black  basalt  shows 
the  king  solidly  placed  on  a  simple  cube,  without  arms  but 
with  a  projecting  foot-rest;  the  head  is  lost  but  the  usual  beard 
falls  to  the  breast,  the  body  is  completely  covered  by  a  girdled 
robe,  the  hands  rest  stiffly  on  the  knees. 

Beyond  this  gate  the  outer  wall  now  followed  closely  along 
the  slope  of  the  moat,  no  longer  leaving  space  for  the  enemy 
under  the  walls,  for  the  invention  of  the  battering-ram  had 
made  this  too  dangerous.  The  posterns  and  bastions  like¬ 
wise  disappeared,  and  towers  at  regular  intervals  took  their 
place.  The  inner  wall  followed  the  outer  more  or  less  closely 
and  at  an  average  distance  of  about  sixty-five  feet  along  the 
western  side  of  the  city.  It  did  not  attempt  to  include  the 
southern  suburb,  but  turned  east  along  the  line  of  the  older 
structure,  cut  through  the  open  place  where  the  stelae  of  kings 
and  eponym  officials  had  been  set  up,  and  reached  the  Tigris. 
Although  the  walls  were  so  pretentious,  the  technic  was  by  no 
means  an  improvement.  The  base  of  the  wall  was  faced  with 
stone,  but  the  bricks  above  were  not  so  well  formed,  and  the 
clay  was  often  mixed  with  potsherds. 

Shalmaneser  took  up  his  abode  in  Ashur  after  848,  but  he 
soon  tired  of  its  charm  and  in  832  removed  to  Kalhu,  there  to 
remain  to  the  end.  His  palace  was  begun  southeast  of  his 
father’s,  and  its  scanty  ruins  manage  to  contribute  something 
to  the  art  of  the  reign.  Most  impressive  were  the  bulls,  huge 
cubes  of  fourteen  feet,  on  whose  backs  were  inscribed  the  narra¬ 
tive  which  is  our  main  recourse  for  the  middle  period.  A  pair 


THE  GREAT  REVOLT 


151 


of  small  winged  lions  forming  an  entrance  to  a  chamber  and  a 
nine-foot  figure  with  right  hand  uplifted  and  a  branch  of  pop¬ 
pies  in  the  left  may  be  mentioned. 

His  Black  Obelisk  has  enjoyed  wide  popularity  because  of 
its  portrait  of  Jehu;  to  the  artist  it  makes  as  little  appeal  as 
does  its  badly  garbled  annals  edition  to  the  historian.  Its 
height  is  six  and  a  half  feet,  and  it  has  been  cut  from  a  hard 
black  limestone,  but  so  little  care  has  been  taken  that  a  di¬ 
agonal  white  streak  mars  its  perfection.  Five  sets  of  reliefs 
cover  each  of  its  sides,  but  the  execution  is  rough  and  scarcely 
a  line  which  is  supposed  to  be  straight  has  attained  its  object. 
Where  we  can  compare  its  work  with  that  of  the  preceding 
period,  as  in  the  case  of  the  monkeys,  the  decline  is  most 
evident. 

The  period  is  redeemed  from  artistic  banality  only  by  the 
repousse  work  of  the  palace  gates  and  by  the  tiling.  Bow  and 
shield  bearers  in  white  on  a  deep-blue  ground  with  bows  and 
battlements  in  golden  yellow  bear  his  inscriptions  at  Ashur, 
and  red  marks  on  them  show  how  they  were  to  be  put  together. 
One  of  the  finest  examples  of  this  technic  comes  from  Kalhu. 
The  king  stands  under  an  awning  to  receive  a  high  official, 
who  wears  a  rich  yellow  dress  and  carries  over  his  left  shoulder 
a  balance  with  a  long  slender  scale  pan.  In  his  right  hand  the 
king  holds  a  bowl  which  he  has  just  received  from  his  subordi¬ 
nate,  his  left  hand  grasps  the  bow  whose  straight  tip  touches 
the  ground,  while  under  his  left  arm  he  carries  the  double- 
edged  sword  in  its  sheath  adorned  with  the  herring-bone  pat¬ 
tern.  On  his  head  is  perched  the  white  fez-like  tiara,  with 
band  rising  in  front,  and  with  two  flaps  which  fall  to  the  waist 
behind.  His  glossy  black  beard  is  short  and  so  is  the  coil  of 
hair  resting  upon  his  neck.  He  wears  a  short-sleeved  jacket 
of  dark  yellow  and  a  dark  yellow  skirt  with  double  row  of 
fringes,  a  third  rounding  to  show  where  the  end  of  the  skirt 
has  been  tucked  away  into  the  belt.  His  garments,  like  those 
of  the  other  officials,  are  adorned  with  huge  rosettes,  and  on  his 
feet  are  black  sandals.  Behind  is  a  eunuch,  similarly  dressed, 
save  for  his  bare  head,  carrying  under  his  right  shoulder  a  re- 


152 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


serve  bow  and  under  his  left  a  quiver  with  arrows  and  a  sword. 
Still  further  to  the  left,  a  bearded  soldier,  barelegged  and  in 
short  tunic  and  pointed  helmet,  wears  his  sword  at  his  side  and 
holds  his  spear  in  his  right  hand.1 

Shalmaneser  is  a  colourless  figure.  The  very  works  of  art 
which  were  intended  to  hand  down  his  fame  to  the  after-world 
only  make  this  the  more  clear.  They  show  him  at  his  best  in 
the  audience-chamber,  where  he  could  hold  the  arrows  grace¬ 
fully  in  one  hand  and  the  bow  resting  on  the  ground  in  the  other 
with  the  ornamental  sword  at  his  side.  His  tiara  and  fillet, 
long  hair-ribbons,  fringed  shawl  and  robe  coming  down  to 
his  sandalled  feet,  all  give  him  a  certain  look  of  effeminacy.2 

The  gate  reliefs  depict  him  in  the  field  but  the  story  is  the 
same,  though  it  must  be  stated  at  once  that  in  several  of  the 
cases  where  his  annals  claim  he  exercised  the  leadership  in 
person  the  reliefs  fail  to  represent  him.  When  he  does  appear, 
he  rarely  descends  from  the  chariot  to  engage  actively  in  the 
fighting,  and  he  needs  the  parasol  to  shoot  against  the  besieged 
city.  In  the  chariot  both  he  and  the  crown  prince  require 
an  additional  man  beside  the  driver  to  hold  the  shield  and  by 
an  arm  thrown  about  the  waist  prevent  them  from  falling  to 
the  ground.  The  one  occasion  on  which  Shalmaneser  appears 
on  horseback,  it  is  with  the  awkwardness  of  a  man  not  accus¬ 
tomed  to  ride  and  not  quite  certain  that  he  can  keep  a  firm  seat. 

At  his  accession,  he  selected  a  new  group  of  officers  entirely 
different  from  those  who  had  been  associated  with  his  father. 
Of  these  the  chief  was  Ashur-bel-ukin,  the  turtanu,  assisted  by 
Ashur-bania-usur,  the  chief  cellarer,  and  Abi-ina-ekalli-lilbur, 
the  chamberlain.  After  five  years,  there  was  a  palace  revolu¬ 
tion  which  made  Daian  Ashur  the  turtanu  and  substituted  Bel- 
bania  for  the  official  of  the  long  and  flattering  name.  That  there 
was  something  not  quite  creditable  to  the  actors  in  this  revolu¬ 
tion  seems  indicated  by  the  care  with  which  all  trace  of  it  was 
covered  up.  The  earliest  inscription  for  the  reign,  the  Mono¬ 
lith,  gives  no  warlike  expedition  for  the  year  855 ;  the  later  edi¬ 
tions  place  in  this  year  one  against  Shupria.  Just  once  the 
1  Layard,  Monuments ,  II,  55.  2  TSBA.,  VI,  pi.  8. 


THE  GREAT  REVOLT 


153 


latest  edition,  the  Obelisk,  breaks  its  custom  of  dating  by  the 
regnal  years.  This  is  in  856,  which  is  called  the  eponymy  of 
Daian  Ashur,  though  the  official  from  whom  the  year  was 
actually  named,  Ashur-bania-usur,  still  held  that  office  as  he 
had  thirty  years  before. 

In  contrast  with  the  colourlessness  of  Shalmaneser,  Daian 
Ashur  stands  out  as  a  real  personality.  A  large  proportion  of 
the  highest  officers  at  court,  many  of  the  commanders  in  the 
field,  the  prefect  of  the  camp,  all  the  men  most  closely  con¬ 
nected  with  the  royal  person,  were  on  the  testimony  of  the  re¬ 
liefs  eunuchs,  and  there  is  good  reason  to  assume  that  Daian 
Ashur  himself  was  one  of  these  unfortunates.  For  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  a  term  almost  without  parallel  in  the  east,  he 
ruled  the  empire  in  the  name  of  his  nominal  master,  and  so 
notorious  was  his  usurpation  of  the  supreme  power  that  it  was 
he  and  not  his  lord  who  was  credited  with  the  glory  of  success¬ 
ful  campaigns  on  the  monument  which  was  to  commemorate 
the  reign.  It  must  be  admitted  that  the  Obelisk  gave  honour 
where  honour  was  due,  for  while  Daian  Ashur  must  have  been 
at  least  as  old  as  Shalmaneser,  in  his  later  years  the  king  took 
his  ease  at  home  and  abandoned  the  mountain  campaigning 
to  the  unwearied  old  man. 

On  his  earlier  expeditions,  from  858  onward,  Shalmaneser 
had  been  accompanied  by  his  son,  the  crown  prince,  and  thence¬ 
forth  the  reliefs  represent  him  with  considerable  frequency. 
If  we  are  to  identify  him  with  Ashur-daian-apal,  he  must  by 
this  time  have  been  no  less  than  forty-five  years  old.  A  prince 
of  such  mature  age  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  suffer  in 
silence  a  usurpation  of  power  so  great  that  the  turtanu’s  name 
should  be  glorified  in  the  official  records  destined  for  posterity, 
while  his  own  exploits,  represented  anonymously  in  the  earlier 
reliefs,  were  in  later  years  entirely  lacking. 

The  unanimity  with  which  Assyria  rose  is  in  itself  proof  of 
the  general  feeling  that  the  rebel’s  cause  was  just.  At  the 
head  of  the  revolt  stood  Nineveh,  which  might  find  some  excuse 
in  the  neglect  of  the  king;  Ashur  had  been  his  special  protege, 
yet  Ashur  too  became  disloyal.  Arrapha  with  its  control  of 


154 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  debatable  land,  the  sacred  city  of  Arbela,  six  of  the  provinces 
on  the  northeast,  the  most  dangerous  frontier,  with  isolated 
districts  here  and  there  in  the  other  provinces,  Amedi,  which 
still  retained  a  measure  of  independence — all  are  placed  on  the 
roll  of  dishonour.  The  Aramaeans  of  Hindanu  and  Til  Abni 
came  to  a  definite  understanding  with  Ashur-daian-apal,  while 
his  scribe  Kabti  wrote  his  master  concerning  the  rebel  whose 
son  had  spoken  to  him  about  the  words  the  king  might  speak.1 

To  meet  the  reproach  that  the  turtanu  and  not  Shalmaneser 
was  the  actual  ruler,  the  king  took  upon  himself  the  eponym 
office  the  next  year,  but  the  revolt  continued  unabated.  In 
the  midst  of  the  great  uprising,  Shalmaneser  passed  away  and 
his  son  Shamshi  Adad  V  (825-812)  entered  upon  a  heritage 
which  must  still  be  made  certain  by  force  of  arms. 

With  his  own  resources,  the  task  seemed  impossible.  Since 
the  rebel  had  secured  the  aid  of  the  Aramaeans,  the  only  avail¬ 
able  ally  for  Shamshi  Adad  was  Babylon.  A  few  short  years 
ago  Marduk-zakir-shum  had  been  his  father’s  vassal;  in  his 
need  Shamshi  Adad  purchased  Babylonian  assistance  by  even 
more  humiliating  concessions.  The  treaty  specifically  placed 
him  under  Babylonian  domination.  Akkad  is  placed  before 
Ashur,  Marduk-zakir-shum  alone  bears  the  title  of  king,  the 
oaths  are  in  the  name  of  Babylonian  gods.  Troops  are  prom¬ 
ised  but  at  a  price:  “If  Shamshi  Adad  hearkens  to  the  wicked 
words  of  Marduk-rimani,  to  the  king  he  shall  say:  ‘Kill, 
destroy,  make  captive.’”  The  booty  is  to  be  restored,  the 
fugitives  seized  and  judgment  made  by  the  king;  whosoever 
shall  sin  and  take  for  himself  the  dues  which  pertain  not  to  him 
shall  find  his  kingdom  destroyed  by  Marduk  and  the  other 
Babylonian  gods.2 

Aided  by  the  troops  of  Marduk-zakir-shum,  Shamshi  Adad 
assailed  Ashur.  The  city  wall  still  preserves  the  memory  of 
this  assault.  Near  the  great  bend  in  the  circumvallation  of 
the  southern  suburb,  we  can  see  where  the  tower  was  breached, 
and  beyond  huge  masses  of  brickwork  lie  overturned  in  the 

1  H.  872,  copy  of  an  ancient  letter  sent  to  Sargon. 

2  Peiser,  MV  AG.,  1896,  6,  14  ff. 


THE  GREAT  REVOLT 


155 


ditch.  Near  by  are  five  bronze  pick-heads,  used  in  making  the 
breach,  and  scattered  about  are  over  a  hundred  and  fifty  bronze 
arrow-heads,  with  two  or  three  sides,  and  the  majority  with  a 
tang  turned  backward  on  which  blazing  tow  might  be  fixed 
before  it  was  shot  against  the  wooden  roofs. 

Assyria  was  brought  within  control  by  the  end  of  his  first  full 
year.  Shamshi  Adad  even  found  time  to  despatch  forces  to 
restore  Amedi  to  its  allegiance  and  to  teach  the  Nairi  kinglets 
that  it  would  be  wise  to  send  in  their  neglected  gifts  of  horses. 
Amedi  lost  its  independence  and  was  made  the  capital  of  the 
Nairi  province.  Comparison  of  the  territory  claimed  with 
that  actually  controlled  by  his  predecessors  made  only  too 
clear  the  disastrous  consequences  of  the  revolt.  The  empire 
had  been  shaken  to  its  foundations :  all  the  country  west  of  the 
Euphrates — Syria,  Palestine,  and  Asia  Minor — all  the  lands  so 
often  raided  beyond  the  Armenian  mountains,  a  good  share  of 
the  territory  along  the  eastern  frontier,  had  slipped  away  dur¬ 
ing  the  fratricidal  struggle,  the  greater  part  never  to  be  restored 
before  the  arrival  of  a  new  dynasty. 

Shamshi  Adad  attempted  to  bring  back  at  least  the  nearest 
of  the  former  Assyrian  possessions.  His  second  campaign  was 
intrusted  to  his  commander-in-chief  Mutarris  Ashur,  “wise, 
knowing  in  warfare,  a  man  of  discernment.’ 7  With  such 
encomium,  we  look  for  his  name  among  the  eponyms,  but  we 
find  it  not.  The  career  of  Daian  Ashur  had  shown  only  too 
clearly  the  danger  of  combining  military  and  civic  functions; 
no  longer  was  the  turtanu  to  lead  armies  in  the  field — his  duties 
were  divided  among  subordinates. 

Haldia  was  again  the  chief  inciter  to  revolt.  Sardurish  had 
been  succeeded  by  his  son  Ishpuinish,  and  he  in  turn  had  al¬ 
most  immediately  associated  with  himself  his  son  Menuash. 
The  land  of  Etiush,  the  Araxes  region,  was  taken  from  its  king, 
Uderuhinish,  the  eastern  mountains  were  penetrated  through 
Parsua  to  the  Sea  of  the  Setting  Sun,  Lake  Urumia,  and  a  stele 
was  left  in  Kelishin,  to-day  the  most  dangerous  of  the  frontier 
passes.  Mutarris  Ashur  likewise  reached  the  Sea  of  the  Set¬ 
ting  Sun,  recovered  the  territory  taken  by  Ishpuinish,  and  on 


156 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


a  third  expedition  received  horses  from  Hubushkia,  the  Mannai, 
and  Parsua,  so  that  the  unfortunate  mountaineers  must  now 
pay  double  tribute.  Past  the  antimony  mountain,  the  Assyr¬ 
ians  moved  on  to  the  territory  of  the  Medes,  drove  the  natives 
to  refuge  on  the  White  Mountain,  won  their  capital,  Sagbita, 
burned  hamlets  estimated  at  one  thousand  two  hundred,  and 
made  such  an  impression  that  thirty  Nairi  chieftains  came  in 
with  their  gifts.  The  list  is  too  long  for  insertion,  but  Iranian 
scholars  find  it  most  precious,  the  first  collection  of  Iranian 
proper  names. 

By  June  of  821  Shamshi  Adad  was  prepared  to  test  the  valid¬ 
ity  of  oaths  extorted  by  force  of  necessity.  Marduk-zakir- 
shum  had  just  passed  away,  and  his  son  Marduk-balatsu-iqbi 
had  taken  his  place.  The  Babylonian  frontier  was  now  at 
Zaddi,  almost  due  east  of  the  city  of  Ashur  itself.  The  direct 
route  into  Babylonia  was,  therefore,  blocked  by  enemy  garri¬ 
sons,  but  the  road  farther  east  along  the  mountain  slopes  was 
passable  and  afforded  an  opportunity  to  outflank  the  enemy. 
Pausing  only  long  enough  to  kill  three  lions  on  Mount  Ebih, 
Shamshi  Adad  crossed  the  range  and  occupied  Me  Turnat, 
whose  inhabitants  were  carried  off  to  be  reckoned  Assyrian 
citizens. 

The  crossing  of  the  Turnat  and  the  Ialman  mountains 
brought  the  submission  of  four  hundred  “cities,”  whose  size 
we  can  conjecture  when  we  note  that  all  told  they  mustered  just 
three  hundred  and  thirty  warriors.  The  palm-groves  were 
cut  down,  and  the  Babylonians  retired  to  Dur  Papsukal,  which 
lay  on  an  island  in  the  midst  of  the  stream,  and  so  seemed  a 
city  of  refuge  to  the  four  hundred  and  forty-seven  “cities” 
placed  on  the  map  by  the  official  eye-witness  of  Shamshi  Adad. 
It  was  captured  with  heavy  loss  to  the  defenders,  the  royal 
bed  and  other  palace  furniture  came  into  the  possession  of 
the  king,  and  so  well  satisfied  was  he  that  he  handed  over  the 
remainder  of  the  booty  to  the  common  soldiers.  Too  late 
Marduk-balatsu-iqbi  arrived  with  a  relieving  army  and  took 
up  his  position  on  the  River  Daban.  Shamshi  Adad  claims 
the  victory,  describes  the  dead  and  wounded  and  the  immense 


THE  GREAT  REVOLT 


157 


spoil — and  the  narrative  closes  abruptly.  We  need  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  story  to  learn  what  happened  next. 

That  all  was  not  as  Shamshi  Adad  would  have  us  believe 
is  made  evident  by  the  careful  avoidance  of  Babylonia  in  the 
years  immediately  following.  During  820-818  expeditions 
were  directed  against  Tille,  whose  name  thenceforth  takes  the 
place  of  Kutmuh  in  the  list  of  provinces.  Babylonian  prob¬ 
lems  again  claimed  attention  in  815  when  the  great  god  went  to 
Der;  two  years  later  the  Chaldsean  land  was  the  object  of  his 
attentions,  and  in  812  Babylon.  This  second  campaign  proved 
fatal  to  Shamshi  Adad. 

Of  his  brief  reign,  there  is  little  to  remark,  either  of  reproach 
or  of  commendation.  The  carved  figure  he  left  behind  repre¬ 
sents  the  conventional  Assyrian  monarch.  He  resided  in  the 
southeast  palace  at  Kalhu,  his  annals  were  set  up  in  the  court 
of  the  Anu-Adad  temple  at  Ashur  over  a  human  head,  he  was 
buried  with  his  fathers  in  the  royal  sepulchres  at  Ashur.  His 
inscribed  coffin  of  basalt  was  even  less  pretentious  than  that  of 
his  grandfather. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


WOMAN’S  RULE,  APPROACH  TO  MONOTHEISM,  AND 

DECLINE 

The  reign  of  Shamshi  Adad  was  short  and  its  significance 
small.  Yet  it  was  his  fate  to  marry  a  princess  whose  name  was 
to  go  down  the  ages,  long  after  his  own  was  forgotten,  as  the 
most  beautiful,  most  cruel,  most  powerful,  and  most  lustful 
of  Oriental  queens,  Sammuramat,  or,  to  give  her  the  more  fa¬ 
miliar  Greek  appellation,  Semiramis.1 

Had  Sammuramat  died  as  the  wife  of  Shamshi  Adad,  Ori¬ 
ental  legend  would  have  bestowed  on  her  no  immortality. 
Such  fame  as  was  hers  was  due  to  the  premature  death  of  her 
husband,  for  as  queen  mother  woman  has  always  found  her 
best  opportunity  in  the  Orient,  and  Ashur  had  called  her  son 
to  be  king  of  Assyria  in  his  childhood. 

So  powerful  was  Semiramis  at  first  that  she  made  dedications 
in  her  own  name,  erected  a  stele  in  the  Square  of  the  Stelae 
as  if  a  king,  placed  her  name  before  that  of  her  son,  and  em¬ 
phasised  rather  that  she  was  the  widow  of  Shamshi  Adad  and 
daughter-in-law  of  Shalmaneser  than  that  she  was  the  mother 
of  the  reigning  monarch.  The  conquests  attributed  to  Semir¬ 
amis  are  indeed  but  exaggerations  of  those  which  must  be 
assigned  to  her  period  of  rule.  The  real  credit  should  go  rather 
to  Nergal-ilia,  who  had  risen  from  a  mere  governorship  of 
Arrapha  in  831  to  a  position  but  four  grades  below  the  turtanu 
in  818,  and  reached  this  coveted  post  with  the  accession  of 
Adad-nirari. 

The  most  important  expansion  of  territory  was  made  on  the 
eastern  frontier,  where  the  Greeks  located  the  most  spectacular 
triumphs  of  Semiramis.  After  the  year  “in  the  land”  needed 
by  the  queen  for  the  settling  of  her  power,  the  imminent 

1  Cf.  especially  Lehmann-Haupt,  Die  historische  Semiramis,  1910. 

158 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


159 


danger  from  the  Median  hordes  forced  operations  against  them 
in  810.  Incorporation  of  Mesopotamia  into  the  Assyrian 
Empire  was  completed  in  809  when  Guzana,  the  territory 
about  the  headwaters  of  the  Habur,  was  pacified  and  placed 
on  the  list  of  provinces.  Expeditions  in  808  and  807  against 
the  Mannai  mark  the  most  easterly  extension  of  the  Assyrian 
arms  and  afford  a  slight  basis  for  the  fabled  conquests  of 
Semiramis  in  Bactria  and  India. 

In  his  fifth  year  Adad-nirari  reached  maturity  and  took  upon 
himself  the  burden  of  empire.  Semiramis  lost  her  power,  but 
her  brief  reign  had  been  sufficient  to  give  her  a  unique  reputa¬ 
tion.  She  was  one  of  the  few  orientals  the  Greeks  remembered, 
and  down  to  the  nineteenth  century  poems  and  operas  were 
composed  in  her  name.  In  her  son  Ninyas,  whom  she  was  re¬ 
ported  to  have  married,  we  have  all  the  Greeks  knew  of  Adad- 
nirari. 

Adad-nirari  celebrated  his  coming  to  age  by  an  expedition 
into  Syria,  against  Arpad,  the  capital  of  Agusi,  and  against 
Damascus.  His  success  was  commemorated  by  one  of  his 
governors,  Nergal-eresh  of  Rasappa,  who  set  up  in  Zabani 
south  of  the  Singara  mountains  a  stele  which  represented  in 
rude  provincial  style  the  king  before  the  divine  emblems. 
The  next  year  Hazazu  was  besieged,  the  city  of  Bali  was  in¬ 
vested  in  804,  and  the  year  following  the  march  was  directed 
against  the  Upper  Sea. 

Menuash  of  Haldia,  associated  with  his  father  Ishpuinish, 
became  sole  king  about  815,  and  promptly  set  about  reconquer¬ 
ing  the  Mannai  from  the  Assyrians.  More  fortunate  than  they, 
his  monuments  are  still  found  in  Mannai  land,  at  the  foot  of 
Lake  Urumia,  and  they  thus  prove  that  he  had  better  control 
of  these  wild  passes  than  have  the  governments  of  our  own  day. 
Then  Menuash  was  in  the  Nipur  hills  due  north  of  Assyria,  and 
the  Assyrian  records  speak  of  expeditions  against  Hubushkia 
in  802,  in  792,  in  785,  and  in  784.  The  immediate  result  of 
this  shutting  off  of  the  Mannai  by  the  Hubushkians  was  the 
loss  of  the  Parsua  region  to  Adad-nirari.  Menuash  slaughtered 
two  thousand  odd  soldiers  in  Alzi,  and  the  Assyrian  expedition 


160 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


into  Lusia  proved  a  failure.  He  even  claims  the  conquest  of 
the  Ashurini  land,  that  is,  territory  belonging  to  Assyria  proper. 
The  various  peoples  along  the  upper  Euphrates  are  named,  and 
inscriptions  were  erected  in  their  territory.  Beyond  its  bend, 
he  reached  to  the  Hittites  and  to  Melidia,  and  a  conquest  of 
the  Urume  may  be  our  earliest  reference  to  the  Armenians, 
perhaps  now  settled  in  Cappadocia.  North  of  this  far- 
stretching  line  all  Armenia  was  his,  clear  to  the  Araxes  River. 
He  was  justified  in  adding  “mighty  king7’  to  his  titulary. 

Everywhere  we  find  his  inscriptions  and  his  building,  but 
his  heart  was  especially  devoted  to  Tushpash.  The  east  and 
west  range  between  Mesopotamia  and  Armenia  had  already 
been  proved  in  many  a  hard-fought  struggle  to  be  one  of  the 
most  impenetrable  barriers  in  existence.  On  the  other  side,  a 
mile  above  sea-level,  was  a  great  lake,  without  outlet,  and  un¬ 
drinkable  because  filled  with  alkali.  The  mountain  rim  which 
shut  it  in  on  the  south  was  equally  marked  on  the  other  side 
of  the  triangle,  with  Nimrud  reaching  almost  ten  thousand  feet 
in  height  and  with  Sipan  almost  fourteen  thousand,  whose 
gleaming  snows  and  pointed  craters  were  magnificent  when 
viewed  from  afar. 

On  the  third,  or  eastern,  side  of  the  triangle  was  a  broad  plain 
surrounded  by  hills,  and  in  the  centre  a  long  rock  of  extraor¬ 
dinarily  hard  limestone  three  hundred  feet  high,  and  which 
formed  a  most  striking  landmark.  The  plain  was  extremely 
fertile  and  irrigation  was  easy.  Menuash  built  a  canal  to  which 
he  gave  his  name,  and  the  garden  city  began  the  career  which 
still  continues,  thanks  to  the  beneficent  waters  first  made  to 
flow  by  Menuash.  Poplars  grew  up,  as  well  as  apples,  peaches, 
pomegranates,  melons,  cucumbers;  we  have  records  of  the 
establishment  of  vineyards  and  of  temples  with  many  units  of 
seed  land.  The  bare  Van  rock,  with  its  wonderful  view,  was 
covered  with  buildings,  but  only  rock-cut  steps,  rock-hewn 
inscriptions,  and  the  caves  for  the  dead  have  survived.  Else¬ 
where  we  find  accounts  of  canals,  palaces,  forts,  and  temples, 
for  the  age  of  Menuash  is  the  golden  age  of  Haldian  architec¬ 
ture. 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


161 


Punitive  expeditions  were  directed  by  Adad-nirari  against 
the  Medes  in  three  groups  of  two  years,  beginning  with  801, 
795,  and  790,  and  in  787  as  well;  Namri  was  invaded  in  798, 
and  about  the  same  time  Elli,  Harhar,  Arziash,  and  Mesu 
were  attacked.  The  collapse  of  Assyrian  influence  in  the 
barren  mountains  of  Media  seemed  for  the  moment  more  than 
offset  by  successes  obtained  in  the  south  and  west.  A  more  or 
less  valid  claim  to  Babylonia  might  be  put  forward  by  Adad- 
nirari  on  the  basis  of  his  mother’s  Babylonian  birth,  but  no 
attempt  was  made  to  render  it  effective  until  after  Semiramis 
was  deposed.  Already  in  796  and  795  we  have  expeditions 
to  Der,  but  no  serious  attack  was  made  until  786.  It  was  a 
matter  of  little  difficulty  to  carry  off  the  new  ruler,  Bau-ahi- 
iddina,  and  with  him  went  an  impressive  spoil  of  gods:  the 
“ Great  God”  who  went  in  procession  to  Der,  Humhummu, 
the  Mistresses  of  Babylon  and  Akkad,  Shimalia,  Nergal, 
Annunitum,  Mar-biti  of  the  city  of  Malki.  Thence  Adad- 
nirari  continued  to  Kutu,  Babylon,  and  Borsippa,  where  he 
made  the  pure  offerings  of  a  sovereign  prince,  and  the  cities 
supported  the  decrees  of  Bel,  Nabu,  and  Nergal.  The  kings  of 
the  nomad  Chaldseans  were  devastating  the  settled  country; 
their  forays  were  checked  for  the  time  being  by  the  strict 
measures  taken  by  the  Assyrians.  A  new  boundary  was  de¬ 
limited,  and  the  next  year  the  “ Great  God”  went  to  Der  in 
state  under  Assyrian  auspices. 

Progress  of  the  Assyrians  west  of  the  Euphrates  was  checked 
by  the  pestilence,  and  it  was  not  until  797  that  Mansuate,  now 
the  dominant  city  in  north  central  Syria,  was  in  danger.  The 
whole  Hittite  land,  Amurru,  Tyre,  Sidon,  Israel,  Edom,  and 
Palastu,  the  first  instance  of  the  use  of  the  Philistine  name  in 
the  sense  of  the  later  Palestine,  recognised  the  Assyrians  as 
their  masters.  The  willingness  with  which  Israel  and  Edom 
made  submission  was  further  increased  by  their  desire  to  see 
their  revenge  on  their  enemies  Judah  and  Damascus. 

So  low  had  Hazael  brought  Israel  in  the  last  days  of  Jehu 
that  his  son  Jehoahaz  (814-800)  possessed  but  fifty  horsemen 
and  ten  chariots  out  of  the  two  thousand  Ahab  had  led  into 


162 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


battle  at  Qarqara.  Passing  without  fighting  through  a  thor¬ 
oughly  cowed  Israel,  Hazael  won  for  himself  the  whole  of  the 
Philistine  land  from  the  western  sea  to  Aphek.  The  equally 
Philistine  Gath  was  taken  from  Judah,  and  Jehoash  (836-799) 
saved  himself  from  complete  ruin  only  by  sending  to  Hazael 
ail  the  treasures  of  temple  and  palace.  HazaeFs  son,  Bar 
Hadad  III,  was  a  man  of  lesser  caliber,  and  Jehoahaz  resumed 
his  independence.  Bar  Hadad  made  another  attempt  to 
restore  Aramaean  control  when  the  young  Jehoash  became  king 
in  Israel  (800-785).  Samaria  was  besieged,  and  for  a  time  the 
famine  was  severe,  but  there  came  to  the  camp  of  the  invader  a 
rumour  that  Hittite  and  Egyptian  kings  had  been  hired  against 
them,  a  great  panic  befell,  and  they  fled  in  dismay.  In  three 
pitched  battles,  the  greatest  at  Aphek,  all  the  cities  taken  by 
Hazael  were  recovered.1 

Foiled  in  the  south,  Bar  Hadad  turned  his  attention  to  north 
Syria,  where  Irhuleni  had  been  succeeded  by  a  certain  Zakir 
whose  original  home  was  Laash.  Thanks  to  his  god  Baal- 
shamain,  the  “Lord  of  Heaven/’  he  was  made  to  reign  in 
Hazrek2  on  the  Orontes,  a  short  distance  south  of  Hamath. 
If  Hazrek  had  before  this  belonged  to  Damascus,  we  can  un¬ 
derstand  why  Bar  Hadad  formed  an  alliance  against  him.  Of 
the  ten  kings,  we  have  mention  of  Bar  Gush,  king  of  Agusi, 
the  king  of  Quweh  or  Cilicia,  the  king  of  the  Umq  we  have 
learned  as  the  equivalent  of  Hattina,  the  king  of  Samal,  the 
king  of  Meliz  or  Melitene — it  is  the  usual  catalogue  of  the 
kings  of  north  Syria  and  of  Asia  Minor. 

All  these  kings  fell  upon  him  suddenly  and  laid  siege  to 
Hazrek,  raised  a  wall  higher  than  the  wall  of  that  city,  and  dug 
a  ditch  deeper  than  its  moat.  Then  did  Zakir  lift  up  his  hands 
to  Baal-shamain,  and  Baal-shamain  answered  him  and  sent  by 
the  hand  of  seers  and  men  expert  in  numbers,  and  thus  did  Baal- 
shamain  say:  “Fear  not,  for  I  have  made  thee  king  and  I  will 
stand  by  thee  and  I  will  rescue  thee  from  all  those  kings  who 
have  made  siege  against  thee.”  So  Zakir  appointed  men  of 
Hazrek  for  charioteers  and  for  horsemen  to  guard  her  king  in 
1 II  Kings,  12  f . ;  6  f.  2  The  biblical  Hadrach,  Zech.  9:1. 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


163 


the  midst  of  her,  he  built  her  up  and  added  a  district  to  her, 
and  made  it  her  possession  and  made  it  his  land.  And  he 
filled  with  men  all  these  fortresses  on  every  side  and  he  built 
temples  in  all  his  land.  The  stele,  written  in  a  curious  mix¬ 
ture  of  Aramaic  and  Phoenician,  did  he  set  up  before  A1  Ur 
and  his  other  gods,  Shamash  and  Sahar,  and  the  gods  of  heaven 
and  earth,  and  upon  it  he  wrote  that  which  his  hands  had 
done.1 

A  year  after  the  Israelite  Jehoash  had  ascended  the  throne, 
the  Judean  Jehoash  was  followed  by  his  son  Amaziah  (799- 
782).  His  reign  began  with  a  great  success,  the  slaughter  of 
the  Edomites  in  the  Valley  of  Salt  and  the  capture  of  their 
rock-girt  metropolis  Sela.  The  youthful  victor  sent  a  message 
to  the  equally  youthful  Jehoash:  “Come,  let  us  look  each  other 
in  the  face.”  Jehoash  replied  with  the  fable  of  the  thistle  that 
asked  the  cedar  of  Lebanon  for  a  marriage  alliance.  Battle 
was  joined  at  Beth  Shemesh,  commanding  the  entrance  to  the 
valley  up  which  runs  now  the  railroad  to  Jerusalem;  Judah 
was  completely  defeated,  Amaziah  was  made  prisoner,  the 
wall  of  Jerusalem  was  broken  down  for  two  hundred  yards. 
Amaziah  was  permitted  to  continue  his  rule,  but  as  a  sub¬ 
ject. 

Bar  Hadad  had  been  supplanted  by  Mari,  and  on  him 
the  Assyrians  made  a  spectacular  assault.  Established  in  his 
palace,  Adad-nirari  received  an  enormous  indemnity — twenty- 
three  hundred  talents  of  silver  and  twenty  of  gold,  three  thou¬ 
sand  of  copper  and  five  thousand  of  iron,  cloths,  linen,  a  bed  of 
ivory,  a  litter  inlaid  with  the  same  precious  material,  full  com¬ 
pensation  for  the  many  defeats  suffered  by  his  predecessors  at 
the  hands  of  Damascus. 

A  sinister  hint  has  survived  as  to  the  means  employed  to 
bring  to  an  end  the  dynasties  of  Syria.  An  Aramaean  dedica¬ 
tion  to  Hadad  is  set  up  by  the  eunuch  Akrabu,  son  of  Gab- 
barud.  His  father  was  the  king  of  Hattina  who  had  opposed 
Shalmaneser  III,  and  he  had  been  saved  from  a  fearful  death 
when  an  end  was  made  to  his  father’s  state  only  because  he 
1  Pognon,  Ins.  semitiques,  II,  no.  86;  Torrcy,  JAOS.,  XXXV,  353  ff. 


164 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


had  been  so  mutilated  that  he  could  never  become  a  pretender 
to  the  throne.1 

The  returning  armies  carried  home  from  Syria  more  than  the 
rich  booty.  The  plague  has  always  been  at  home  in  the  Nile 
valley,  and  about  this  time,  as  Amos  puts  it,  Yahweh  sent 
among  the  Hebrews  pestilence  after  the  manner  of  Egypt.2 
It  spread  throughout  the  country,  and  the  first  series  of  expe¬ 
ditions  in  that  direction  were  checked  by  the  ravages  of  the 
fell  disease.  After  another  visit  to  Syria,  it  broke  out  in  765 
and  again  in  759.  During  the  entire  period  it  must  have  been 
endemic,  and  to  no  small  degree  it  contributed  to  the  weaken¬ 
ing  of  the  empire. 

Little  is  known  of  the  culture.  Decline  is  indicated  by  the 
structure  Adad-nirari  erected  in  Kalhu,  south  of  the  palace 
of  Ashur-nasir-apal,  a  group  of  four  upper  chambers,  the  ma¬ 
terial  of  adobe,  the  interior  walls  plastered  and  painted.  Pave¬ 
ment  slabs  before  the  two  entrances  gave  the  genealogy  of  the 
king  through  five  generations,  or,  no  small  jump,  to  the  semi- 
mythological  heroes  of  the  earliest  Assyrian  history. 

Excavations  have  been  carried  on  at  Guzana,  at  the  magnifi¬ 
cent  source  of  the  Habur  still  called  the  “ Springhead.”  A 
group  of  private  letters  to  its  governor  Mannu-ki-Ashur, 
eponym  in  793,  will  be  interesting  when  published.  Another 
work  of  art  from  the  reign  is  the  stele  from  Rasappa. 

The  conquests  of  Semiramis,  real  or  fabled,  yield  in  interest 
to  her  religious  reforms.  While  the  earlier  centuries  had  seen 
much  Babylonianisation  in  religion,  there  had  been  a  remark¬ 
able  ignoring  of  Nabu,  god  of  Borsippa.  A  single  early  exam¬ 
ple  of  a  Nabu  name  is  the  Sha  Nabu-damqa  who  was  chamber- 
lain  for  Ashur-nasir-apal;  we  wait  until  the  present  reign  be¬ 
fore  we  have  the  name  of  another  official  compounded  with 
Nabu.  Then  we  have  a  group,  and  particularly  illuminating 
is  the  Nabu-shar-usur,  “May  Nabu  protect  the  king/7  for  we 
may  rest  assured  that  no  courtier  would  so  have  named  his 
son  unless  the  god  had  been  a  prime  favourite  of  the  king  he 
wished  to  flatter. 

1  CIS.,  II,  75;  Sachau,  ZA.,  VI,  432  ff. 


2  Amos  4 : 10. 


Fig.  80.  EUNUCH  OFFICIAL  OF  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL. 

(Metropolitan  Museum.) 


Fig.  81.  STATUE  OF  GOD  NABU,  PALACE  OF 
ADAD-NTRARI  HI. 


•_ 


1 


■ 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


165 


If  we  were  to  judge  contemporary  art  by  the  Nabu  statues 
dedicated  by  Bel-tarsi-iluma,  the  governor  of  Kalhu,  “for  the 
life  of  Adad-nirari,  king  of  Assyria,  his  lord,  and  for  the  life  of 
Sammuramat,  lady  of  the  palace,  his  mistress/’  our  .opinion 
would  be  low  indeed.  The  huge  horned  head  and  box-like 
lower  body  point  back  to  a  god  in  pillar  form,  the  hair  is  roughly 
waved,  the  eyes  and  eyebrows  are  most  primitive,  the  arms  so 
bloated  that  they  cause  one  to  suspect  dropsy,  but  the  clasped 
hands  are  rather  well  done,  and  the  fine  finger-nails  indicate 
of  what  the  artist  was  capable  when  not  bound  by  his  ancient 
original. 

On  the  statue  is  a  long  hymn  of  praise  to  the  god,  who  is 
said  to  be  the  powerful,  the  exalted,  son  of  Esagila,  the  ma¬ 
jestic  leader,  the  mighty  prince,  son  of  Nudimmut  or  Ea, 
whose  command  is  exalted,  the  messenger  of  cunning  things, 
ruler  of  all  heaven  and  earth,  who  knoweth  all  things,  whatever 
their  names,  whose  ear  is  open,  who  holdeth  the  pen  of  the  tab¬ 
let,  who  taketh  the  hand  of  the  prisoner,  the  merciful,  who 
weaveth  spells,  who  cleanseth  or  casteth  a  spell  upon  the  be¬ 
loved  of  Enlil,  lord  of  lords,  whose  power  hath  no  equal,  with¬ 
out  whom  no  decision  is  made  in  heaven,  the  compassionate, 
the  forgiving,  whose  condescension  is  good,  who  dwells  in  Ezida 
in  Kalhu.  Thus  far  the  writer  has  been  quoting  an  earlier 
hymn,  with  its  frank  recognition  of  other  gods  friendly  to 
Nabu.  At  most  we  may  compare  the  cases  where  the  devotee, 
in  his  ecstasy,  declares  his  patron  the  only  god  worthy  of 
worship.  The  author  of  this  profession  of  faith  has  left  heno- 
theism  behind  and  has  almost  reached  pure  monotheism  with 
its  intolerance  of  other  gods,  for  he  solemnly  concludes: 
“Thou  who  shalt  follow  after,  trust  in  Nabu,  trust  not  in 
any  other  god.”1 

Times  were  no  more  ripe  for  monotheism  than  they  were  in 
the  days  of  the  Egyptian  Ikhnaton,  and  the  intolerance  of 
Nabu  worshippers  produced  its  inevitable  reaction.  The 
Nabu  temple  was  restored  in  Nineveh  as  late  as  787,  but  the 
inscriptions  which  date  from  the  time  when  Adad-nirari  was  his 

1 IR.,  35:2;  Rogers,  Parallels,  307  ff. 


166 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


own  master  are  as  conspicuous  for  their  silence  in  regard  to 
Nabu  as  they  are  for  the  emphasis  on  the  supreme  position  of 
Ashur.  Nabu  names  disappear,  and  the  propaganda  ended  in 
failure.  Perhaps  we  do  wrong  to  compare  the  movement 
with  that  of  Ikhnaton;  a  few  years  before,  the  nationalist 
Elijah  had  successfully  protested  the  introduction  of  the  Tyrian 
Baal  into  Israel;  in  each  case  nationalism  was  victorious. 

Adad-nirari  III  (812-782)  was  still  a  young  man,  well  under 
forty,  when  death  transferred  his  throne  to  his  son  Shalmaneser 
IV  (782-772).  Actual  power  was  vested  in  the  turtanu 
Shamshi-ilu  who  had  been  governor  of  Ashur  as  early  as 
805  and  had  retained  it  until  his  promotion.  In  him  we  have 
the  third  of  the  dominating  personalities  who  set  the  tone  for 
the  age;  that  he  exercised  that  dominance  in  weaker  fashion 
than  did  his  predecessors  must  be  reckoned  a  chief  cause  for 
the  decline  of  the  dynasty  and  for  the  revolts  which  disturbed 
its  latest  days. 

Assyria’s  greatest  enemy  was  now  Haldia.  The  petty  Ar¬ 
menian  power  whose  Arame  and  Sardurish  I  had  checked  the 
Assyrians  under  Shalmaneser  III  had  grown  apace.  Shamshi 
Adad  had  found  the  traces  of  Ishpuinish  close  to  Lake  Urumia, 
Menuash  had  pushed  the  border  west  to  the  Euphrates,  and 
with  the  growing  wealth  had  erected  palace  after  palace. 
Argishtish  I  anticipated  Shalmaneser  IV  in  becoming  king  by 
about  a  year  (783),  and  soon  made  Haldia  the  first  power  in 
the  Near  East.  His  own  annals,  carved  on  the  precipitous 
cliffs  of  his  isolated  citadel  of  Tushpash,  overlooking  Lake 
Van,  repeat  with  wearisome  monotony  the  names  of  unknown 
lands  with  their  equally  monotonous  list  of  sheep  and  goats 
carried  off  as  booty.  Here  and  there  we  are  able  to  pick  out  a 
city  whose  location  is  sure,  and  thus  we  may  correlate  in  some 
degree  the  fourteen  years  of  the  annals  with  the  data  of  the 
Assyrian  Chronicle. 

The  Araxes  region  held  the  attention  of  Argishtish  his  first 
two  years,  but  in  781  he  turned  south  and  fought  with  the  Hit- 
tites,  Niriba,  and  Melidia.  This  very  year  the  Assyrians  place 
an  expedition  against  Urartu,  and  in  the  next  a  letter  to  the 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


167 


god  Ashur  refers  to  Pan  Ashur-lamur,  governor  of  the  ancient 
capital,  but  it  is  too  mutilated  to  have  preserved  the  events  in 
detail.  More  expeditions  date  from  the  two  years  following 
and  from  the  eighth  and  tenth  as  well.  In  his  fifth  year 
Argishtish  makes  mention  of  an  Assyrian  general  Harsitash, 
in  his  next  he  fought  in  Bush  tush  and  Parsua,  in  777  against 
the  Assyrians  and  the  Mannai,  against  the  Mannai  in  776  and 
775,  and  Assyria  and  Alzi  are  mentioned  together,  in  774  he 
was  close  to  Lake  Urumia,  near  the  end  of  his  reign  he  could 
mention  Syria  as  part  of  his  conquests.  In  Sargon’s  time  men 
remembered  that  Ushhu  and  Quda  had  not  been  obedient  to 
Assyrian  kings  since  the  time  of  Shamshi-ilu.1  Perhaps  the 
best  evidence  can  be  found  of  the  danger  to  which  Assyria 
was  exposed  by  the  location  of  a  monument  barely  twenty- 
five  miles  north  of  Nineveh  which  mentions  Argishtish, 
Shamshi-ilu,  and  the  judge  Mushallim  Urta,  and  is  probably 
the  witness  to  a  battle  on  this  site. 

First  place  in  the  records  is  contested  by  the  Ituai  with  the 
Haldians.  They  make  their  earliest  appearance  on  the  north 
Babylonian  frontier  when  their  territory  was  invaded  by  the 
second  Tukulti  Urta,  they  were  a  part  of  the  Ashur  province 
early  in  the  reign  of  Adad-nirari  III  (805),  but  they  were  again 
hostile  to  Assyria  in  791,  expeditions  were  demanded  against 
them  in  the  first  two  years  of  Shalmaneser,  and  once  more  in 
his  seventh.  The  third  year  of  his  successor  saw  an  attack 
against  Gananate,  on  the  northeast  of  Babylonia;  the  fourth 
was  against  the  city  Marrat  in  the  Sealands;  the  fifth  was 
against  the  Ituai;  the  sixth  was  spent  “in  the  land,”  sure  sign 
of  a  reverse;  in  the  seventh  the  Assyrians  were  back  again 
fighting  Gananate.  The  Assyrian  frontier  had  obviously  re¬ 
treated  all  along  the  south;  it  was  to  the  advantage  of  local 
communities  and  not  of  Babylon,  for  the  kings  we  may  place 
here,  Nabu-mukin-zer,  Marduk-bel-usate,  and  Marduk-apal- 
iddina  II,  were  utterly  powerless. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  the  growing  weakness  of  the 
central  power  was  reflected  in  the  growing  independence  of 

1 II.  246. 


168 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  nobility.  A  condition  almost  feudal  is  illustrated  by  the 
case  of  Bel  Harran-bel-usur,  whose  very  name,  “May  the  Lord 
of  Harran  protect  the  lord/’  declared  dependence  on  the  non- 
Assyrian  god  of  the  rival  Mesopotamian  metropolis.  How 
great  were  his  pretensions  is  shown  by  the  city  he  founded  in 
the  desert  west  of  Ashur,  not  far  from  where  to-day  stretch 
the  ruins  of  Romanised  Hatra.  He  is  sculptured  in  the  royal 
attitude  of  devotion  before  the  sacred  emblems,  though  his 
beardless,  puffy  face  shows  him  a  eunuch.  He  appeals  to  the 
gods,  first  the  Babylonian  Marduk,  “who  settles  cities  and 
founds  towns,”  then  to  the  equally  Babylonian  Nabu,  to  Sham- 
ash  who  “judges  all  the  cities  and  protects  the  world  regions,” 
to  Sin  and  to  Ishtar,  but  Ashur  is  deliberately  ignored.  It  is 
these  gods  and  no  human  overlord  who  have  given  orders  for 
the  building  of  the  deserted  city  and  for  its  change  of  name  to 
Dur  Bel  Harran-bel-usur,  for  the  construction  of  the  temple, 
the  shrines,  and  the  road  to  the  city.  We  see  the  figures  of 
these  deities  and  not  of  his  nominal  master  on  the  stele  he 
caused  to  be  carved,  and  it  is  in  their  dwelling  that  it  is  dedi¬ 
cated. 

There  is  no  mention  of  the  king  when  Bel  Harran-bel-usur 
describes  the  revenues,  free-will  offerings,  incense  offerings 
which  he  has  granted  for  the  eternal  worship  of  the  gods, 
though  such  technical  terms  should  have  been  reserved  for 
the  royal  finances.  The  blessings  and  curses  which  end  the 
stele  are  positively  insulting.  They  are  directed  to  the  indi¬ 
vidual  whom  Ashur,  Shamash,  Marduk,  and  Adad  shall  call 
to  rule  the  land,  and  he  is  ordered  in  so  many  words  not  to 
suppress  the  revenues,  take  away  the  freedom  from  dues  which 
Bel  Harran-bel-usur  has  established  for  that  city,  he  is  not  to 
carry  off  the  grain  when  it  is  reaped  or  requisition  the  straw, 
its  waters  he  is  not  to  divert  to  another  plot,  boundary  and 
boundary-stone  are  not  to  be  changed,  seizure  of  cattle  and 
sheep  is  not  to  be  made,  the  inhabitants  who  dwell  therein  are 
not  to  bear  tax  or  forced  labour,  nor  any  other  due  which  may 
be  inflicted,  nor  shall  the  levy  be  exacted  from  them. 

Usurpation  of  rights  which,  even  when  the  Kashshite  kings 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


169 


ruled  a  feudal  Babylonia,  were  reserved  to  the  king  alone  is 
shown  at  its  worst  in  the  concluding  passage:  “Do  not  move 
the  boundary-stone  from  its  place,  do  not  set  it  up  in  another 
place,  do  not  set  it  up  in  another  locality,  do  not  put  it  in  a 
house  of  lead,  do  not  break  it,  do  not  hide  it  in  the  earth,  do 
not  cast  it  into  the  water,  do  not  cover  it  with  asphalt,  do  not 
burn  it  in  the  fire,  do  not  erase  the  writing.  The  gods  whose 
names  are  written  on  this  stele,  when  in  war,  battle,  fight,  in 
sickness,  disease,  pestilence,  plague,  you  raise  your  hands,  will 
hear  your  prayer  and  will  come  to  your  aid.  Whoso  changes 
my  writing  and  my  name,  Ashur,  Shamash,  the  pest  god 
Dibbara,  and  Amurru,  the  great  gods,  without  limit  will  be 
unpropitious.”  1 

Amazing  as  it  may  seem,  with  all  this  breakdown  of  the 
central  power,  in  the  face  of  the  constant  encroachments  of 
Haldia  and  of  the  defections  in  the  south,  the  Syrian  policy 
was  not  abandoned.  The  Assyrians  marched  to  the  cedar 
land  in  775,  and  two  years  later  they  reached  Damascus.  The 
sudden  death  of  Shalmaneser,  perhaps  from  the  plague,  made 
no  change  in  the  policy,  for  the  troops  of  Ashur-dan  III  (772- 
755)  attacked  Hazrek  in  772  and  again  in  765,  but  pestilence 
intervened  and  Shamshi-ilu  turned  his  thoughts  from  war. 

Syria  was  left  to  follow  her  own  devices,  which,  unfortunately 
for  the  historian,  did  not  include  the  chronicling  of  what  she 
did.  The  Hebrew  narrator  loses  interest  at  this  point  and  de¬ 
votes  but  a  few  lines  of  condemnation  to  the  long  reign  of 
Jeroboam  II  (785-745).  One  statement  alone  is  vouchsafed, 
that  he  restored  the  borders  of  Israel  from  the  city  Libo  in  the 
Hamath  country  to  the  sea  of  the  Arabah,  the  Dead  Sea.2 
Granted  that  this  assertion  is  approximately  correct,  the 
Assyrian  retreat  had  permitted  a  great  increase  of  Israelite 
power. 

The  wealth  secured  and  the  pride  engendered  find  illustra¬ 
tion  in  the  prophecies  of  Amos.  The  student  of  Hebrew  re¬ 
ligion  gives  to  the  first  writing  prophet  a  definite  place  in  that 

1  Scheil,  RT.,  XVI,  176  fT.;  Unger,  Stele  des  Bel  Harran-bel-usur. 

2 II  Kings  14  :  25. 


170 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


great  evolution;  the  historian  of  the  Assyrian  Empire  quotes 
him  as  illustrating  certain  social  and  economic  changes  which, 
he  is  sure,  must  have  taken  place  universally,  but  whose  clear¬ 
est  evidence  is  found  in  the  sermons  recorded  by  the  Hebrew 
prophets. 

Amos  began  his  career  with  visions.  Yahweh  formed  the 
locust  to  devour,  but  the  plague  was  stayed  when  the  prophet 
prayed  their  withdrawal.  Next  came  devouring  fire,  and  a 
second  time  his  intercession  was  successful.  The  third  vision 
was  of  the  wall  shown  untrue  by  the  plumb-line,  and  Yahweh 
could  no  longer  pass  in  patience  the  disobedient  Israelites. 

To  the  pilgrims  assembled  at  Bethel,  Amos  made  this 
proclamation.  He  was  reported  to  the  king  by  the  chief 
priest  Amaziah,  who  gave  him  this  advice:  “ Soothsayer,  run 
back  home  to  Judah,  for  there  only  can  you  earn  your  daily 
bread  by  carrying  on  the  prophetic  business” — in  other  words, 
condemnation  of  Israel  would  be  popular  enough  in  the  south 
— “but  prophesy  no  more  at  Bethel,  since  there  is  the  royal 
sanctuary  and  palace.”  The  answer  of  Amos  contains  the 
essence  of  the  new  prophecy:  “I  was  no  prophet,  not  even  a 
prophet’s  son;  I  was  but  a  herdsman,  a  dresser  of  scyamores. 
Despite  such  lack  of  qualification,  Yahweh  took  me  away  from 
following  the  flock  and  gave  me  order:  ‘Go,  prophesy  against 
my  people  Israel.’”  Amaziah  is  to  suffer  in  person  the  doom 
impending  on  Israel,  his  wife  is  to  be  publicly  dishonoured, 
his  sons  and  daughters  shall  fall  by  the  sword,  his  land  shall 
be  divided  by  a  measuring-line,  he  himself  shall  be  buried  in 
unclean  soil. 

The  upper  classes  are  to  be  deported  because  their  worship 
of  Yahweh  lacks  an  ethical  element.  They  trample  upon  the 
needy  and  deprive  the  poor  peasant  of  life  itself.  They  long 
for  the  new-moon  festival  to  be  over  that  they  may  again  sell 
grain,  and  the  Sabbath  that  they  may  offer  wheat  in  the  ba¬ 
zaars.  They  make  the  measure  by  which  they  sell  small  but 
the  weight  is  great,  so  that  they  cheat  the  people  with  false 
balances.  They  are  care-free  in  Mount  Zion  and  reckless  in 
the  hill  of  Samaria,  and  the  agriculturalist  Amos  is  particu- 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


171 


larly  disgusted  because  these  newly  rich  traders  consider  them¬ 
selves  the  chief  men  in  the  nation.  It  is  they  and  not  the  no¬ 
bility  by  birth  who  lie  on  the  ivory  couches  we  have  so  fre¬ 
quently  met  in  the  Assyrian  tribute  lists,  they  recline  at  ease 
at  banquets,  and  feast  on  chosen  lambs  from  the  flocks  and 
calves  stall-fattened.  They  bawl  out  idle  songs  to  the  sound 
of  the  lyre,  they  invent  new  musical  instruments  like  David. 
They  pour  down  huge  caldrons  of  wine,  they  anoint  themselves 
with  the  best  oils.  Their  women  are  as  heartless  as  the  men. 
They  are  cows  of  Bashan  who  oppress  the  poor,  but  their  time 
will  come,  they  shall  be  dragged  away  with  hooks,  each  straight 
ahead  from  the  enemy’s  breach  in  the  walls,  and  into  the  land 
of  Harmon. 

Should  not  the  whole  earth  tremble  in  fear  of  this,  should 
not  every  inhabitant  mourn?  Should  not  the  invasion  rise 
like  the  inundation  of  the  Nile  and  recede  like  the  same  river 
of  Egypt?  Yahweh  will  make  the  sun  set  at  noon,  he  will 
make  the  earth  dark  in  the  clear  day,  as  had  happened  in  the 
awful  eclipse  of  763.  The  pilgrimages  to  Bethel  will  be  turned 
into  mourning,  the  songs  into  dirges,  like  the  mourning  for 
an  only  son. 

Nor  is  Israel  alone  to  suffer.  Punishment  is  to  come  upon 
Damascus  for  her  sins.  Tyre  has  forgotten  the  covenant  of 
brotherhood  made  by  Hiram  with  David  and  Solomon  and 
has  handed  over  the  Hebrews  as  slaves  to  the  Aramaeans. 
Ammon  has  destroyed  expectant  mothers  with  unspeakable 
cruelties  in  their  desire  to  enlarge  their  territory  in  Gilead; 
Rabbah  shall  be  fired  and  their  divine  king  shall  be  taken  cap¬ 
tive  with  his  priests.  Moab  burned  the  bones  of  a  ruler  of 
Edom,  so  shall  her  city  Kerioth  be  fired.  In  the  background 
we  always  feel  the  presence  of  Assyria,  but  never  a  word  is 
uttered  in  condemnation  of  the  hostile  empire.1 

A  mind  beyond  the  ordinary  was  demanded  to  realise  the 
inevitable  rebound  of  Assyria,  for  at  the  moment  nothing 
seemed  more  unlikely.  The  Syrian  armies  brought  back  the 
pestilence,  sure  sign  of  the  wrath  of  the  pest  god  Nergal, 

1  Of  the  commentaries,  cf.  especially  Harper,  Amos  and  Hosea. 


172 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


and  two  years  after  Shamash  caused  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun. 
To  us  its  occurrence  in  763  fixes  by  exact  astronomy  the  As¬ 
syrian  chronology;  to  contemporaries  it  was  proof  of  divine 
anger.  Amos  saw  in  the  sun  setting  at  noon  and  the  earth 
dark  on  a  clear  day  Yahweh’s  wrath;  to  the  Assyrians  it  was 
the  last  manifestation  needed  to  prove  the  necessity  of  a  change 
in  dynasty. 

Ashur,  abandoned  long  since  as  a  capital,  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  a  great  feudal  noble,  Aplia,  who  added  to  the 
territories  he  ruled  as  governor  two  of  the  most  important 
frontier  provinces,  Mazamua  on  the  east  and  Amedi  on  the 
north.  The  sun  was  eclipsed  on  the  15th  of  June;  before 
the  end  of  the  year  Ashur  raised  the  standard  of  revolt.  Two 
years  later  Arrapha  was  in  rebellion,  and  in  759  Guzana  cast 
off  the  yoke  of  Shamshi-ilu.  A  second  expedition  against 
Guzana  in  the  next  year  brought  “ peace  in  the  land”  and  two 
years  of  quiet.  Aplia  disappears. 

Ashur-dan  died  in  755  without  issue.  His  two  predecessors, 
like  himself,  had  reached  the  throne  at  an  early  age,  and  Shal¬ 
maneser  IV  had  left  no  other  son.  Shamshi-ilu  placed  the 
uneasy  crown  upon  an  uncle  of  the  last  king,  Ashur-nirari  V, 
the  son  of  Adad-nirari,  and  so  a  mature  man  of  at  least  thirty 
years  of  age.  No  sooner  had  Shamshi-ilu  possessed  himself 
of  the  viziership,  at  the  accession  of  Shalmaneser  IV,  than  he 
made  a  clean  sweep  of  the  former  officials,  and  only  Nergal- 
eresh  of  Rasappa  survived.  So  clearly  was  it  recognised  that 
the  reigns  of  Shalmaneser  IV  and  Ashur-dan  III  were  one  that 
the  cursus  of  eponyms  was  broken  only  to  insert  the  new  king 
and  the  old  turtanu.  The  cursus  begins  anew  with  Ashur- 
nirari,  and  of  all  the  hierarchy  of  the  last  two  reigns,  Shamshi- 
ilu  is  the  only  one  who  continues  in  office.  The  others  had 
been  sacrificed  to  the  revolution,  whose  leader  we  may  see  in 
the  new  chamberlain,  Marduk-shallimanni. 

The  first  year  of  Ashur-nirari’ s  reign  (755-746)  was  graced 
by  an  expedition  against  Iiazrek,  and  in  the  second  the  Assyr¬ 
ians  marched  against  Arpad  in  north  Syria,  where  Haldian 
influence  was  becoming  increasingly  pronounced.  Mati-ilu, 


WOMAN’S  RULE 


173 


king  of  Arpad,  was  forced  to  sue  for  peace,  the  terms  of  which 
were  embodied  in  a  formal  treaty: 

“Mati-ilu,  his  sons,  his  daughters,  his  nobles,  the  men  of  his 
land,  shall  not  sin  against  the  oaths.  This  goat  is  not  brought 
forth  from  his  flock  as  an  offering,  either  for  the  war-loving  or 
the  peace-loving  Ishtar,  either  for  illness  or  for  slaughter  as 
food;  it  has  been  brought  that  Mati-ilu  should  take  the  oath 
of  loyalty  to  Ashur-nirari,  king  of  Assyria.  If  Mati-ilu  sins 
against  the  oaths,  then  as  this  goat  is  brought  from  his  flock 
and  shall  never  return  to  his  flock,  to  the  headship  of  his  flock 
shall  not  return,  so  shall  Mati-ilu,  with  his  sons,  his  daughters, 
and  the  men  of  his  land  be  brought  out  of  his  land,  to  his 
land  shall  he  not  return,  to  the  headship  of  his  land  shall  he 
not  return.  This  head  is  not  the  head  of  a  goat,  it  is  the  head 
of  Mati-ilu,  it  is  the  head  of  his  sons,  of  his  nobles,  of  the  men 
of  his  land.  If  Mati-ilu  transgresses  these  oaths,  then  as  the 
head  of  this  goat  is  cut  off  and  his  teeth  laid  in  his  mouth,  so 
shall  the  head  of  Mati-ilu  be  cut  off. 

“At  the  command  of  Ashur-nirari  shall  he  go  against  his 
enemies;  Mati-ilu  with  his  nobles  and  his  military  forces  shall 
not  go  out  or  march  according  to  the  pleasure  of  their  own 
hearts,  else  shall  Sin,  the  great  lord  who  dwells  in  Harran, 
clothe  Mati-ilu,  his  nobles,  and  the  men  of  his  land  with  leprosy 
like  a  garment,  that  they  camp  outside  in  the  open  fields  and 
receive  no  compassion.  Increase  of  cattle,  asses,  sheep,  horses, 
shall  there  not  be  in  his  land.  May  Adad,  the  prince  of  heaven 
and  earth,  cut  off  Mati-ilu,  his  land,  and  the  men  of  his  land 
with  want  and  hunger;  may  they  eat  the  flesh  of  their  sons  and 
daughters  and  may  they  be  savoury  as  goat’s  flesh  or  mutton; 
may  Adad  cut  off  their  wells  and  may  rainfall  cease;  may  dust 
be  their  food,  on  the  bare  ground  may  they  seek  repose.  If 
Mati-ilu,  his  sons,  his  nobles,  sin  against  the  oaths  to  Ashur- 
nirari,  king  of  Assyria,  may  his  cultivators  not  sing  in  the 
fields  the  harvest  song,  may  not  a  plant  of  the  field  spring 
forth.  If  they  bring  an  offering  for  remembrance  of  any  one, 
but  it  be  not  an  offering  for  thy  life,  if  they  bring  it  for  thy 
sons  and  daughters  but  bring  it  not  for  the  life  of  Ashur- 


174 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


nirari,  his  sons  and  his  nobles,  then  may  Ashur,  father  of  the 
gods,  who  grants  kingship,  reduce  thy  land  to  a  desert,  thy 
subjects  to  skeletons,  thy  city  to  ruined  mounds,  thy  house 
to  a  ruin. 

“If  Mati-ilu  sins  against  these  oaths  to  Ashur-nirari,  king 
of  Assyria,  may  Mati-ilu  become  a  common  prostitute,  may 
his  men  become  women,  as  a  prostitute  in  the  squares  of  his 
city  may  he  find  his  support,  from  land  to  land  may  they  drive 
him,  as  a  mule  may  he  have  neither  wife  nor  children.  May 
Ishtar,  queen  of  women  and  mistress  of  wives,  take  from  them 
their  bows.  May  their  wailing  be  bitter:  ‘Woe  is  us,  against 
the  oaths  to  Ashur-nirari,  king  of  Assyria,  have  we  sinned.’” 
In  witness  are  the  gods,  a  long  list  headed  by  Ashur  and  con¬ 
cluded  by  the  local  deities,  the  Adads  of  Kurban  and  of  Hallaba 
or  Aleppo.  Terrible  as  was  this  oath,  its  effect  was  transient. 
Before  the  brief  reign  had  come  to  an  end,  Mati-ilu  had  de¬ 
nounced  the  treaty  and  had  entered  into  an  alliance  with 
Haldia,  whose  king,  Sardurish  II,  claimed  the  defeat  of  Ashur- 
nirari. 

Four  years  of  inactivity  ensued  and  then  came  two  expedi¬ 
tions  against  the  Namri  land,  not  wars  of  offence,  but  attempts 
to  beat  back  the  mountain  tribes  from  Assyria  itself.  That 
destruction  did  not  come  from  this  frontier  so  early  was  due 
to  the  fortunate  circumstance  that,  after  one  more  year  “in 
the  land,”  Kalhu  revolted.  On  the  lucky  13th  of  Airu,  in 
the  beginning  of  May,  746,  Tiglath  Pileser,  perhaps  the  city’s 
governor,  sat  upon  the  throne. 

All  was  going  to  ruin  in  Ashur.  The  inner  walls  erected  only 
a  century  before  by  Shalmaneser  III  had  completely  fallen; 
already  houses  were  being  built  from  the  debris  and  little  streets 
and  alleys  were  taking  the  place  of  the  broad  avenues  which 
had  led  to  the  city  gates.  Our  records  are  completely  silent 
as  to  any  form  of  cultural  life,  for  the  period  marked  a  decline 
in  material  prosperity  no  less  than  in  population  and  in  mili¬ 
tary  power. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  RESTORATION— TIGLATH  PILESER  III 


With  the  advent  of  Tiglath  Pileser  III  (746-728),  we  enter 
upon  the  last  period  of  Assyrian  history.  Our  sources  rapidly 
become  more  and  more  abundant  and  the  importance  of  the 
events  chronicled  increases  in  the  same  ratio.  It  is  this  period 
of  little  over  a  century  which  justifies  a  detailed  history  of  As¬ 
syria. 

Tiglath  Pileser  was  a  usurper,  though  he  boasts  of  the  kings 
his  fathers.1  He  appears  but  once  before  iris  accession,  on 
the  occasion  when  Adad-nirari  granted  him  a  field  with  the 
immunities  customarily  conceded  to  high  officials.  His  name 
was  a  reminiscence  of  the  first  Tiglath  Pileser;  when  he  reached 
the  throne,  he  promptly  adopted  no  small  part  of  his  tradi¬ 
tional  policy.2 

The  authority  of  the  new  ruler  was  firmly  established  by  the 
beginning  of  May.  Ample  time  was  left  for  war,  Babylonia 
promised  an  easy  victory,  so  to  Babylonia  he  hastened.  A 
great  darkness  had  fallen  upon  that  country.  After  Marduk- 
apal-iddina  II,  for  two  years  there  was  no  king,  and  then 
Eriba  Marduk,  son  of  Marduk-shakin-shum,  seized  the  hand 
of  Bel,  and  justified  his  usurpation  by  restoring  to  their  right¬ 
ful  owners,  the  citizens  of  Babylon  and  Borsippa,  the  fields 
settled  by  hostile  Aramaeans. 

Some  ancient  scholars  begin  the  ninth  dynasty  with  Nabu- 
shum-ishkun  (760-747),  though  probably  he  was  the  son  of 
his  predecessor;  at  any  rate  he  was  a  member  of  the  Dakkuru 

1  We  can  hardly  accept  the  suggestion  of  Schnabel,  OLZ.,  XII,  530,  that  he 
was  son  of  Adad-nirari  IV  and  brother  of  Ashur-nirari,  for  that  would  make  him 
too  young. 

2  Detailed  study  of  reign,  A.  S.  Anspacher,  Tiglath  Pileser  III ,  1912;  cf.  AJSL., 
XXXVII,  223  ff.;  latest  edition  of  inscriptions,  Rost,  Keilschrifttexte  Tiglat- 
Pilesers  III ;  new  edition  by  writer  in  preparation;  source  criticism,  Histori¬ 
ography,  32  ff. 


175 


176 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


tribe.  His  rule  outside  Babylon  was  nominal,  for  in  the 
suburb  of  Borsippa  was  the  Assyrian  Nabu-shum-imbi  as 
mayor  and  housekeeper  of  Nabu,  and  by  his  side  was  a  priestly 
college,  also  largely  Assyrian.  He  fears  the  great  godhead  of 
Nabu,  rebuilds  the  temple  in  his  own  name,  and  we  sense  the 
royal  formula  under  the  statement  that  no  official  from  of 
ancient  days  before  his  time  had  undertaken  it.  Before  he 
could  complete  the  work  ordered  him  by  Nabu,  lord  of  lands — 
this  appellation  of  right  belongs  alone  to  Marduk,  god  of  the 
suzerain  Babylon — there  arose  a  state  of  anarchy.  The  men  of 
Babylon,  Borsippa,  Dushulti  on  the  Euphrates,  the  Chaldseans, 
Aramaeans,  and  men  of  Dilbat,  contended  for  long  with  one 
another.  Then  up  rose  Nabu-shum-iddina,  whose  father, 
Dannu  Nabu,  once  held  that  office  of  housekeeper  which 
Nabu-shum-imbi  had  usurped,  and  asserted  his  ancestral 
claims.  Ezida  fell  into  his  hands,  whereupon  he  assailed  the 
house  of  Nabu-shum-imbi  by  night.  The  only  defence  known 
to  Nabu-shum-imbi  was  prayer  to  his  patron  saint,  but  the 
citizens  of  Borsippa  were  more  warlike.  All  night  long  they 
stood  with  their  bows  and  lances  about  the  house,  and  in  the 
morning  Nabu-shum-imbi  was  safe  and  ready  to  ascribe  his 
salvation  to  the  city  god. 

A  new  era,  that  of  Nabu-nasir,  begins  with  747;  the  native 
chronicle  and  the  so-called  Ptolemaic  Canon  of  Rulers  alike 
begin  with  his  accession  year.  The  next  saw  the  enthrone¬ 
ment  of  Tiglath  Pileser,  whose  support  Nabu-nasir  was  only 
too  glad  to  purchase.  So  it  was  with  the  alluring  prospect  of 
being  welcomed  by  the  propertied  classes  as  a  deliverer  that 
Tiglath  Pileser  set  forth  to  inaugurate  his  reign  with  cheaply 
bought  laurels. 

A  few  days’  march  east  of  the  Tigris  brought  the  Assyrians 
to  the  outpost  of  Til  Kamri,  defended  by  a  great  coalition  of 
Aramaean  tribes.  The  river  which  protected  the  allied  front 
was  crossed  on  rafts,  and  the  battle  showed  that  the  vitality 
of  Assyria  was  still  unimpaired.  Tiglath  Pileser  seized  the 
first  opportunity  to  make  it  apparent  a  new  policy  was  to 
obtain  in  the  administration  of  dependent  states.  Over 


THE  RESTORATION— TIGLATH  PILESER  III  177 


against  the  rebel  city,  an  entirely  new  settlement  was  estab¬ 
lished,  Assyrian  from  foundation  to  coping;  its  name  Kar 
Ashur,  “Wall  of  Ashur,”  indicated  its  purpose  as  guard-house 
against  the  nomads.  A  palace  was  constructed  within  and 
it  was  garrisoned  by  the  “men  of  the  lands,  the  booty  of  my 
hands,”  henceforth  to  be  considered  native  Assyrians,  and  so 
subject  to  tax  and  gift.  The  whole  northern  quarter  of  Baby¬ 
lonia  seems  to  have  been  included  in  the  new  province. 

All  the  old-time  centres,  Sippar,  Kutu,  Kish,  Babylon, 
opened  their  doors,  and  their  Assyrian  saviour  offered  his 
ritually  pure  sacrifices  in  these  “cities  without  parallel.”  The 
eastern  border  along  the  banks  of  the  Surappu  and  Uknu 
Rivers  to  the  seacoast  was  reduced  and  made  to  use  one 
tongue,  and  the  deported  inhabitants  were  assigned  to  the 
provinces  of  the  turtanu,  the  chamberlain,  the  chief  cellarer, 
and  the  governors  of  Barhalza  and  Mazamua.  Dur  Tukulti- 
apal-esharra  was  built,  and  the  captives  settled  in  his  “Wall” 
were  commanded  to  worship  the  royal  image  which  his  lord 
Ashur  had  ordered  him  to  set  up  “as  a  sign  of  victory  and 
might.” 

His  second  campaign  was  against  Parsua,  whose  chieftain 
Tunaku  had  seized  districts  claimed  for  Assyria.  The  nu¬ 
merous  tribes  to  whose  eponymous  founders  the  scribes  reg¬ 
ularly  prefixed  “House”  were  overrun,  and  the  men  of 
Harshu,  long  ago  hostile  to  the  kings  of  Ur,  were  burned  out 
of  the  mountain  forests.  A  relief  depicts  Nikur,  Tunaku’s 
capital,  on  the  crest  of  a  high  mountain,  its  double  walls 
battered  down  by  the  wheeled  ram  with  its  projecting  spears, 
which  is  driven  up  a  prepared  ramp.  The  archers  carry 
a  new  type  of  shield,  wicker  and  head  high,  with  cover¬ 
ing  top.  The  dead  and  the  impaled  living  were  stripped  of 
their  clothes  in  further  ignominy.  Parsua  and  Bit  Hamban 
were  the  provinces  formed  from  this  territory.  One  further 
land  we  must  notice  because  it  is  called  the  “Land  of  the 
Rooster”;  he  may  be  on  his  way  from  the  Iranian  plateau, 
for  the  Greeks  called  him  the  Persian  bird,  though  the  Syrians 
named  him  the  Akkadian. 


178 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


No  small  part  of  the  extant  annals  is  filled  with  the  expedi¬ 
tion  of  737  against  the  Medes.  A  queer  mixture  of  races  is 
indicated  with  “houses ”  of  tribes  bearing  Iranian,  Kashshite, 
or  Aramaean  names,  and  all  inextricably  mingled.  Assyrian 
influence  is  seen  in  a  “ruin  of  Ashur,”  and  place  names  with 
Kengi  remind  one  of  how  in  earliest  Shumer  Kengi  meant  the 
“Land.”  Ashur-daninanni,  governor  of  Mazamua,  was  the 
leader,  and  the  house  of  Ishtar  in  the  province  of  the  goddess 
Bau  was  made  the  centre. 

Continued  absence  of  Tiglath  Pileser  on  the  Syrian  frontier 
left  Babylonia  too  much  to  her  devices.  Nabu-nasir  remained 
the  nominal  ruler,  and  in  far-away  Uruk  men  dated  by  his  fifth 
year  as  they  restored  an  ancient  festival  whose  very  name  had 
been  forgotten  and  the  lines  of  the  edifices  had  lapsed  from 
men’s  memories.  King,  resident,  and  nobles  alike  promised 
aid,  and  so  the  lady  Usur-amatsu  enjoyed  a  new  abode.  How 
little  Nabu-nasir  excelled  his  predecessors  is  shown  rather  by 
the  separation  of  Borsippa  from  Babylon.  Nabu-nasir  was 
not  content  to  allow  the  contest  to  go  by  default,  but,  as  the 
author  of  the  Babylonian  Chronicle  sadly  confesses:  “The 
battle  which  Nabu-nasir  waged  against  Borsippa  is  not  re¬ 
corded.”  Fourteen  years  he  ruled  in  quiet,  if  not  with  power. 
His  son  Nabu-nadin-zer  was  shortly  deposed  by  a  provincial 
governor,  Nabu-shum-ishkun  II;  after  a  little  more  than  a 
month,  the  rebel  met  his  fate,  and  the  ninth  dynasty  came  to 
an  inglorious  end  (732). 

The  new  pretender  was  Nabu-mukin-zer,  chief  of  the  Ara¬ 
maean  Amukkanu,  and  there  is  significance  in  the  fact  that 
from  his  reign  we  have  the  first  use  of  Aramaic  in  an  explana¬ 
tory  note  to  the  cuneiform  Babylonian  which  was  still  the  one 
language  in  which  business  transactions  could  be  legally  writ¬ 
ten.  Union  of  Babylonia  under  a  strong  Aramaean  ruler  was 
a  serious  danger  to  Assyria,  so  in  731  Assyrian  armies  were 
once  more  marching  along  the  old  war-path  east  of  the  Tigris. 
The  Puqudu  and  Lahiru  were  added  to  the  province  of  Ar- 
rapha,  and  various  other  tribes  were  punished. 

All  this  was  preliminary  to  an  attack  on  the  de  facto  king 


THE  RESTORATION— TIGLATH  PILESER  III  179 


of  Babylon,  now  confined  in  his  native  Sapea,  a  triple-walled 
city  the  lowest  circuit  of  which  is  higher  than  a  full-grown 
palm-tree.  Archers  in  an  abbreviated  and  girdled  dress  form 
the  defence,  but  many  of  their  nude  bodies  lie  in  the  encircling 
stream  across  which  the  invaders  have  constructed  an  approach 
for  the  battering-ram  with  its  double  spears.  In  the  distance 


Fig.  82.  SPOIL  OF  SAPEA. 


a  palm-tree  is  seen  falling  through  the  exertions  of  a  soldier. 
Two  rams  stand  idle  before  a  deserted  city  with  double  walls, 
while  from  a  side-gate  issue  ox-drawn  carts,  each  bearing  a 
family  into  exile.  Before  a  palm-tree  in  full  bearing  is  a  high 
official  with  raised  staff,  while  his  two  eunuch  scribes  register 
the  spoil  of  sheep  and  goats.  It  is  appropriate  that  in  this 
war  against  Aramaeans  we  have  our  first  example  of  the  second 
scribe  with  the  papyrus  roll  to  supplement  the  use  of  tablet 
and  stylus. 


180 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


While  the  siege  of  Sapea  dragged  on,  there  appeared  in  camp 
embassies  of  unusual  interest.  Balasu,  the  Dakkuru  chief, 
was  to  be  remembered  by  those  who  read  Greek  as  Belesys, 
the  Chaldaean  priest  who  assisted  the  Median  Arbaces  to  over¬ 
throw  the  first  Assyrian  empire.1  Nadinu  had  settled  at  Larak, 
an  old  city  on  the  lower  Tigris,  abandoned  so  many  centuries 
that  its  ruin  mound  was  in  popular  fancy  supposed  to  date 
beyond  the  universal  flood. 

Much  more  important  in  actual  history  was  Marduk-apal- 
iddina,  “son”  of  that  Iakinu  who  had  paid  tribute  to  Shal¬ 
maneser  III,  and  real  son  of  the  late  king  of  Babylon,  Nabu- 
shum-ishkun.  His  gifts  were  royal,  gold,  the  “dust  of  his 
land,”  golden  vessels  and  necklaces,  precious  stones,  the  prod¬ 
uct  of  the  seas,  probably  the  pearls  for  which  in  every  age 
the  Persian  Gulf  has  been  famous,  beams  of  ebony,  and  spices. 

The  siege  of  Sapea  was  prolonged  to  the  fourth  year,  when 
the  reign  of  Nabu-mukin-zer  ended  with  his  life.  There  was 
no  legal  ruler  in  Babylonia,  and  Assyria  could  hardly  accept  as 
of  divine  right  half-barbarian  Aramaean  chiefs,  while  revolu¬ 
tions  with  monotonous  regularity  had  shifted  actual  rule  from 
tribe  to  tribe.  Tiglath  Pileser  was  a  foreigner  and  usurper,  but 
he  represented  a  higher  degree  of  culture,  he  reverenced  the 
older  civilisation,  he  stood  for  law  and  order.  Assyrian  peace 
might  mean  stringent  military  rule  and  high  taxes,  but  anything 
was  preferable  to  the  anarchy  which  Babylonia  had  endured 
for  generations.  Native  Babylonians  had  long  since  forgotten 
warfare,  and  thought  only  of  trade  and  the  cult;  they  might 
prefer  Assyrian  peace  at  a  price,  but  the  choice  was  rarely 
theirs.  If  Assyrian  kings  were  strong  and  wise,  Babylon  en¬ 
joyed  security;  if  not,  Babylonia  was  plundered  by  Aramaean 
tribes. 

If  Babylonia  was  not  to  become  an  international  menace,  it 
must  be  policed  from  Assyria,  lest  the  intolerable  confusion 
should  infect  Assyria  from  across  the  border.  We  might, 
therefore,  have  expected  that  the  Assyrians,  with  their  hard 
common  sense  in  political  affairs,  would  have  reduced  Baby- 

1  Ctesias,  in  Diod.  II,  24. 


THE  RESTORATION— TIGLATH  PILESER  III  181 


Ionia  to  a  province.  There  was  little  unity  even  this  late  in 
the  alluvium,  and  from  early  times  parts  of  Babylonia  had  been 
Assyrian.  The  conqueror  might  adorn  himself  with  his  choice 
of  titles  which  represented  his  lordship  over  some  city-state  of 
hoary  antiquity  whose  local  pride  still  clung  to  some  shreds  of 
its  former  greatness.  It  was  somewhat  different  with  the  title 
“King  of  Babylon.” 

Babylon  had  been  the  last  capital  of  a  united  Babylonia,  and 
the  title  carried  some  claim  to  rule  over  the  whole  country, 
which  in  these  degenerate  times  rarely  corresponded  with  the 
actual  situation.  During  Babylon’s  hegemony,  the  literature 
had  been  systematically  revised  in  honour  of  Marduk,  and  this 
was  the  literature  in  the  hands  of  the  Assyrians.  Babylon  in 
their  eyes  became  the  heir  of  all  the  glories  of  earlier  civilisa¬ 
tion. 

Only  one  obstacle  stood  in  the  way  of  assumption  of  the 
title.  According  to  the  theory  of  the  Marduk  priests,  no  one 
could  be  rightfully  king  until  he  had  “seized  the  hands  of  Bel,” 
and  thus  had  become  his  “man”  in  truly  feudal  relation. 
This  ceremony  must  be  gone  through  with,  not  only  on  the 
first  New  Year’s  Day,  but  on  each  and  every.  The  king  might 
be  needed  at  the  head  of  his  troops;  the  residents  only  con¬ 
sidered  that  his  absence  would  rob  them  of  the  greatest  show 
of  the  year. 

Despite  these  evident  disadvantages,  Tiglath  Pileser  de¬ 
termined  to  secure  for  himself  the  prestige  which  was  connected 
with  the  title.  On  the  1st  of  Nisan,  729,  he  seized  the  hands 
of  the  Lord  Marduk  and  became  king  of  Babylon  in  name  as 
in  fact.  To  save  the  tender  susceptibilities  of  the  citizens, 
he  even  permitted  them  to  use  a  separate  name,  Pulu,  and 
this  is  the  reason  why  he  is  once  called  Pul  in  the  Book  of 
Kings.1 


1 II  Kings  15  :  19. 


CHAPTER  XV 


ARARAT  IN  SYRIA  AND  THE  NORTHERN  JUDAH 

Haldia  was  now  at  the  height  of  its  power.  All  Armenia 
was  under  the  sway  of  Sardurish  well  up  towards  the  Cau¬ 
casus,  the  eastern  mountains  were  his  to  the  Mannai  and  Lake 
Urumia,  his  rock  inscription  near  the  Euphrates  crossing  to 
Melidia  stated  the  conquest  of  that  city.  Ashur-nirari  had 
been  defeated,  and  the  territories  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the 
Armenian  mountains,  so  toilsomely  brought  under  by  Tiglath 
Pileser  I  and  by  Ashur-nasir-apal  II,  were  entirely  lost  to  As¬ 
syria,  and  the  same  was  true  of  the  northeastern  mountains 
where  the  operations  of  Shalmaneser  III  and  Adad-nirari  III 
had  been  conducted.  Haldian  control  of  these  regions  was 
dangerous  but  not  particularly  costly;  since  Sardurish  had 
seduced  Mati-ilu  of  Arpad  from  his  oath  to  Ashur-nirari,  the 
wealth  of  Syria  was  no  longer  at  the  disposal  of  Assyria. 

Sardurish  had  revised  his  titulary  to  fit  his  wider  territory. 
He  already  had  precedent  for  the  “King  of  the  World ”  which 
Assyrians  had  wrested  from  Babylonia;  “King  of  Shuraush” 
challenged  Assyrian  overlordship  of  Syria,  and  there  was 
another  challenge  in  the  title  “King  of  Kings. ” 

With  the  situation  in  the  south  temporarily  adjusted  by  his 
first  two  campaigns,  Tiglath  Pileser  prepared  to  attack  the 
Haldian  problem.  Not  daring  to  follow  Sardurish  behind  his 
mountain  rampart,  he  determined  to  oust  him  from  north 
Syria,  where  the  renegade  Mati-ilu  was  supported  by  Sulumal 
of  Melidia,  Tarhulara  of  Gurgum,  and  Kushtashpi  of  Qum- 
muh.  The  coalition  chose  a  position  in  the  rough  hills  on  the 
northwest  corner  of  Mesopotamia,  in  the  district  of  Qummuh. 
The  Sinzi  canal  was  dyed  with  their  blood,  and  Sardurish  eluded 
pursuit  by  a  solitary  flight  on  a  mare,  sure  symbol  to  the  East¬ 
ern  mind  of  a  disgraceful  rout.  The  royal  bed,  tent,  chariot, 

182 


ARARAT  IN  SYRIA 


183 


and  camp  furniture  were  dedicated  to  Ishtar,  and  the  prisoners 
numbered  nearly  ninety-three  thousand.  Chase  was  continued 
to  the  boundary  of  Haldia  proper,  the  bridge  across  the  Eu¬ 
phrates,  and  the  territory  thus  recovered  was  organised  in 
the  manner  which  by  now  had  become  usual. 

Mati-ilu  resisted  for  three  years  in  Arvad  as  might  be  ex¬ 
pected  from  a  man  who  had  foresworn  his  oaths.  The  punish¬ 
ment  inflicted  was  long  remembered.  A  half-century  later, 
the  rab  shaqe  of  Sennacherib  could  ask  the  Jewish  subjects 
of  Hezekiah  “  Where  are  the  gods  of  Arpad?”  “  Where  is  the 
king  of  Arpad?”  in  the  confidence  that  the  terrible  fate  of 
Mati-ilu  had  not  been  forgotten,1  and  when  Isaiah  wished  to 
make  the  Assyrian  king  emphasise  the  total  destruction  of 
Hamath,  he  puts  in  his  mouth  the  question  “Is  not  Hamath 
as  Arpad?”  2 

Kushtashpi  and  Tarhulara  transferred  their  allegiance,  and 
with  them  came  Uriaik  of  Que,  Pisiris  of  Carchemish,  Rezon 
of  Damascus,  and  Hiram  II  of  Tyre.  Of  the  last  we  have 
bronze  bowls,  dedicated  by  his  governors  in  Qartihadast  to 
Baal  Lebanon  as  first-fruits  of  the  bronze.  These  governors 
are  called  sakans,  a  term  borrowed  from  the  Assyrian  shaknu, 
they  rule  the  Cyriote  Carthage,  they  dedicate  first-fruits  of  the 
artificial  metal  based  on  the  native  metal  which  received  its 
name  of  copper  from  Cyprus.  They  dedicate  them  to  the 
lord  of  the  mountains  whose  towering  crests  are  in  sight  from 
every  village  in  their  homeland,  and  they  call  their  earthly 
lord  “King  of  the  Sidonians,”  not  of  Tyre.3 

From  these  bronze  bowls  we  may  gain  some  conception  of 
the  rich  gifts  which  the  durbar  at  Arpad  brought  to  the  As¬ 
syrians,  the  metals,  priceless  laden  spices,  elephant  hides, 
ivory,  coloured  stuffs.  All  north  Syria  was  represented  save 
Tutamu,  the  reduced  ruler  of  what  had  once  been  Hattina, 
who  kept  up  a  futile  resistance  in  the  Unqi  swamp,  while  the 
royal  throne  was  set  up  in  his  palace  at  Kunulua  and  his  pos¬ 
sessions  choked  the  treasury  of  the  invader. 

1 II  Kings  18  :  34;  19  :  13;  Isaiah  36  :  19;  37  :  13. 

2  Isaiah  10 :  9;  cf.  Jer.  49 :  23.  3  CIS.,  I,  5. 


184 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Hebrew  tradition  told  of  early  Aramaean  connections,  as 
when  Jacob  found  among  that  people  a  wife;  Hebrew  Judah 
in  the  south  was  closely  paralleled  in  language,  in  thought,  in 
the  name  of  a  ruler,  most  startling  of  all,  in  his  commemora¬ 
tion  of  Yrahweh  in  his  name,  by  a  country  in  north  Syria  called 
by  the  scribe  Iaudi.  Humour  is  not  a  characteristic  we  ordi¬ 
narily  attribute  to  these  ancient  worthies,  but  the  Kalamu  who 
so  jauntily  appears  on  his  stele,  a  flower  in  his  hand  instead  of 
the  expected  weapon,  gives  us  a  history  of  his  predecessors 
which  is,  to  say  the  least,  unconventional:  “Gabbar  ruled 
Judah,  but  not  a  thing  did  he;  so  did  Bamah,  and  not  a  thing 
did  he;  and  so  did  Father  Hayya,  and  not  a  thing  did  he;  and 
so  did  Brother  Saul,  and  not  a  thing  did  he.  But  I,  Kalamu, 
son  of  integrity,  that  which  I  accomplished  not  even  one  of 
these  before  me  had  done.  My  father’s  house  was  in  the 
midst  of  mighty  kings  and  every  weapon  humbled  them.  Amd 
I  was  in  the  hand  of  the  king  as  one  eating  my  beard  or  as  one 
eating  my  hand.  And  the  king  of  the  Danunim” — uncon¬ 
sciously  we  call  to  mind  the  contemporary  Greek  Danians — 
“was  mighty  against  me,  and  I  hired  against  him  the  king  of 
Assyria.  A  virgin  was  sold  for  a  sheep  and  a  hero  for  a  gar¬ 
ment.  I,  Kalamu,  son  of  Hayya,  sat  on  the  throne  of  my 
father.  In  the  presence  of  the  former  kings,  the  Mush¬ 
kabim” — the  lower  classes — “had  gone  about  like  dogs,  but  I, 
to  one  I  was  a  father,  to  one  as  a  mother,  and  to  one  as  a  brother. 
He  who  before  my  time  had  not  seen  a  sheep,  I  made  the  mas¬ 
ter  of  a  flock;  he  who  before  my  time  had  not  seen  an  ox,  I 
made  the  master  of  cattle  and  the  master  of  silver  and  the 
master  of  gold.  And  he  who  had  not  seen  a  coat  from  his 
youth,  in  my  days  was  clothed  in  fine  linen.  And  I  took  the 
Mushkabim  by  the  hand  and,  gave  them  an  affection  for  me 
like  the  affection  of  the  orphan  for  his  mother.  And  whoever 
of  my  sons  shall  sit  on  the  throne  after  me  and  injures  this  in¬ 
scription,  may  the  Mushkabim” — the  older  subject  popula¬ 
tion — “not  honour  the  Baririm” — the  Aramaean  nobility — 
“and  may  the  Baririm  not  honour  the  Mushkabim.  And 
whoever  shall  destroy  this  inscription,  may  there  destroy  him 


fa 

. 

£ 

rH 

f-H 

o 

fa 

fa 

& 

C$ 

HH 

fa 

P5 

fa 

-»fa> 

<3 

fa 

rH 

fa 

fa 

3 

a 

fa 

fa 

"5 

Q 

fa 

<3 

m 


£ 

O 


fa 

fa 

fa 


r  >—3 
fa  Q 


m 
fa 
fa 

.  fa 

^  o  K 

p-  £  fa 

m  ^  fa 

£  §  fa 

<i  a 

Eh 


U 

I 

fa 

o 

o 

fa 


Q 

fa 

<1 

fa 

fa 

fa 


ARARAT  IN  SYRIA 


185 


Baal  Semed” — the  lord  of  the  ox-team,  represented  on  the 
stele  by  the  horned  head-dress — 1  ‘  the  god  of  Gabbar,  and  Baal 
Hainan” — the  new  moon  with  the  old  in  its  arms — “of  Bamah, 
and  Rekub-el,  the  lord  of  our  house,”  who  as  the  chariot  god 
was  symbolised  by  the  bridle.1 

Not  long  after  this  monarch,  with  his  keen  sense  of  social 
justice  and  his  contemptuous  hiring  of  the  decadent  kings  of 
Assyria,  there  ruled  in  the  northern  Judah  a  certain  Panammu, 
son  of  Qarel,  whose  inscription  is  on  a  huge  round  figure  of  the 
god  Hadad.  It  is  Hadad  who  gave  into  his  hands  the  sceptre 
when  he  sat  on  the  throne  of  his  fathers;  Reshef,  the  war-god, 
stood  by  his  side,  he  was  aided  by  El  and  Rekub  and  Shamash. 
His  land  is  a  land  of  barley,  wheat,  and  garlic,  where  men  till 
the  soil  and  cultivate  vineyards.  In  his  days  did  Judah  both 
eat  and  drink.  The  gods  received  offerings  from  his  hands  and 
in  return  they  have  abundantly  granted  whatsoever  he  has 
asked  from  them.  Hadad  ordered  him  to  build  and  he  did  so, 
and  he  has  also  prepared  a  statue  for  Hadad  and  a  burial-place 
for  himself. 

An  undercurrent  of  uneasiness  runs  through  all  this  rejoicing. 
The  gods  have  at  last  given  him  seed,  and  a  son  may  be  ex¬ 
pected  to  hold  his  sceptre  and  sit  upon  the  throne  in  his  stead. 
Then  he  may  hope  that  his  son  will  sacrifice  to  Hadad  and  will 
remember  his  father,  will  say:  “May  the  soul  of  Panammu  eat 
with  Hadad  and  may  the  soul  of  Panammu  drink  with  that  of 
Hadad.”  There  lurks  the  fear  that  this  hope  will  not  be 
realised.  In  such  an  event,  Hadad  is  begged  to  refuse  favour¬ 
able  opinion  as  to  the  sacrifices  of  the  negligent  one,  deny  his 
requests,  suffer  him  not  to  eat,  and  withhold  sleep  from  him 
by  night.  There  is  danger  that  some  member  of  the  royal 
family,  some  personal  friend  of  the  king,  may  slay  his  son  and 
reign  in  Judah,  and  if  this  happens,  he  is  urged  not  to  kill  in 
anger,  put  to  death  by  his  bow,  slaughter  kinsman  or  kins¬ 
woman,  steal  this  memorial.  But  if  he  does  sin  in  such  manner, 
even  though  the  evil-doer  say  “I  have  put  these  orders  into 

1  F.  von  Luschan,  Ausgrabungen  in  Sendschirli,  IV,  237  ff.;  Torrey,  JAOS ., 
XXXV,  364  ff. 


186 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  mouth  of  a  stranger/’  the  reader  is  not  to  allow  his  eye  to 
be  wearied,  he  is  to  slay  in  wrath  or  instruct  a  stranger  to  kill 
him.1 

His  fears  seem  to  have  been  justified.  There  is  reason  to 
assume  that  Bar  Sur  was  his  son,  and  of  Bar  Sur  we  are  told 
that  there  was  a  conspiracy  which  slew  him  together  with 
seventy  of  his  kinsmen.  With  the  remainder  the  usurper 
filled  the  prisons  and  made  desolate  cities  to  be  more  numerous 
than  those  inhabited.  The  native  record  omits  the  name  of 
the  murderer;  from  the  Assyrian  we  discover  that  it  was  Azriau. 
This  is  so  certainly  an  Azariah  that  it  is  small  wonder  he  was 
identified  by  earlier  scholars  with  the  almost  contemporary 
king  of  the  better-known  Judah  to  the  south.  The  failure 
of  the  identification  only  leaves  the  wonder  the  greater;  how 
are  we  to  explain  the  worship,  postulated  by  his  name,  of  the 
same  Yahweh  who  was  the  one  national  deity  of  the  biblical 
Judah  ? 

The  anger  of  Hadad  was  incurred  because  the  usurper  had 
raised  the  sword  against  his  house  and  had  murdered  Bar  Sur, 
one  of  his  sons.  Was  the  Yahweh  worshipper  Azariah  an  op¬ 
ponent  of  the  cult  of  Hadad  ?  For  Hadad  did  make  the  sword 
to  be  in  Judah  and  showed  his  anger  by  a  great  dearth  of  wheat 
and  barley,  so  that  a  peres  of  wheat  and  a  shatrab  of  barley 
and  an  esnab  of  oil  all  stood  at  a  shekel.  The  elder  Panammu 
had  closed  his  admonitions  to  his  descendants  with  these  sig¬ 
nificant  words :  “  Instruct  a  stranger  to  kill  him.”  His  younger 
namesake  took  the  hint  and  called  in  the  one  stranger  who 
might  avail,  Tiglath  Pileser. 

Little  aid  came  from  the  allied  princelets,  and  Judah  was 
soon  reduced.  Panammu  II  was  made  king  over  his  father’s 
house,  the  prisons  were  put  out  of  commission,  the  captives 
were  set  free.  Then  up  rose  Panammu  and  released  the  wo¬ 
men  of  the  harem,  and  his  father’s  house  he  made  better  than 
before.  Wheat  and  barley,  millet  and  spelt  were  plentiful  in 
his  days,  his  people  might  eat  and  drink  because  of  the  lowness 

1  Sachau,  Ausgrabungen  in  Sendschirli,  IV,  1  ff.;  Cooke,  North-Semitic  Inscrip¬ 
tions,  159  ff. 


Fig.  87.  CARVED  FIGURE.  (SAMAL.)  Fig.  88.  BEEHIVE  VILLAGE  IN  NORTH  SYRIA. 


ARARAT  IN  SYRIA 


187 


of  their  cost.  Tiglath  Pileser  appointed  lords  of  villages  and 
lords  over  chariots,  but  Panammu  was  esteemed  among  the 
mighty  kings.  Whether  he  possessed  silver  or  whether  he 
possessed  gold,  he  was  wise  enough  to  lay  hold  of  the  skirt  of 
his  lord,  the  king  of  Assyria,  and  his  lord,  the  king  of  Assyria, 
was  gracious  to  him  more  than  to  mightier  kings.  He  ran  at 
the  chariot  wheel  of  his  lord,  Tiglath  Pileser,  king  of  Assyria, 
in  the  campaigns  he  waged  from  the  east  to  the  west,  even  the 
four  world  quarters.  And  the  daughters  of  the  east  did  Tig¬ 
lath  Pileser  bring  to  the  west  and  the  daughters  of  the  west  to 
the  east.  The  borders  of  Judah  were  extended  so  that  cities 
from  the  border  of  Gurgum  were  added.  Thereafter,  the  title 
“King  of  Samal”  took  the  place  of  Judah. 

Panammu  gave  final  proof  of  the  loyalty  he  had  asserted  for 
Tiglath  Pileser  by  death  in  the  Assyrian  camp  when  it  was 
pitched  before  Damascus  (732).  The  sad  event  was  bewailed 
by  the  whole  camp,  and  Tiglath  Pileser  made  a  funeral  feast 
for  him  and  brought  him  home  for  burial.  Because  of  his 
father’s  righteousness  and  for  his  own  righteousness,  Panam- 
mu’s  son  Bar  Rekub  was  placed  by  Rekub-El  and  Tiglath 
Pileser  on  the  ancestral  throne.  He  proudly  informs  us  that 
his  father’s  house  excelled  all  in  its  labour  for  its  lord;  he  ran 
at  the  wheel  of  his  lord,  the  king  of  Assyria,  even  in  the  midst 
of  most  mighty  kings,  lords  of  silver  and  lords  of  gold.  He 
took  the  house  of  his  father  and  made  it  far  better  than  the 
house  of  any  one  of  the  most  mighty  kings,  so  that  the  kings 
his  brethren  envied  all  the  prosperity  of  his  house. 

One  stele  he  set  up  is  dedicated  to  the  Baal  of  Harran,  whose 
identity  with  the  moon-god  Sin  is  proved  by  the  symbol  of 
the  old  moon  in  the  new  moon’s  arms.  Bar  Rekub  sits  on  a 
throne  which  closely  imitates  the  Assyrian  in  its  pine-cone 
base,  its  ornament  of  tied  double  volutes,  its  ox-headed  termi¬ 
nals.  On  his  head  is  a  round  cap  with  large  button,  his  short 
hair  and  beard  are  in  elaborate  ringlets,  a  ringlet  falls  to  his 
neck  in  front  of  his  large  ear,  to  which  his  extraordinary  mus¬ 
tache  extends.  A  long  fringed  robe  is  looped  over  his  left  arm, 
in  his  left  hand  he  holds  a  lotus,  his  right  is  raised  to  address 


188 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


his  eunuch  scribe.  The  papyrus  roll  under  the  scribe’s  arm 
and  an  Egyptian  pen-box  in  his  hand  illustrate  the  progress  of 
the  new  method  of  writing  to  the  East. 

After  the  deposition  of  Azariah,  Tiglath  Pileser  took  up  the 
case  of  his  allies.  Kullania,  the  Calneh  of  Isaiah  and  Amos,1 
Byblus  and  the  nineteen  regions  which  belonged  to  the  terri¬ 
tory  of  Hamath,  including  the  coast  cities  of  Usanata,  Shiana, 
and  Simirra,  with  their  villages  up  to  the  mountains  in  the 
rear,  the  old  enemy  city  of  Hazrek,  all  were  restored  to  the 
Assyrian  fold.  The  new  province  was  given  the  name  Simirra 
and  was  placed  under  the  crown  prince  Shalmaneser.  More 
than  thirty  thousand  of  its  inhabitants  were  removed  to  the 
province  of  Que  and  some  twelve  hundred  to  Ulluba,  recently 
conquered  by  his  generals  on  the  Armenian  frontier. 

To  take  their  place,  large  numbers  were  imported  from  the 
southern  and  eastern  portions  of  the  empire.  Twelve  thousand 
Ahlame  from  the  Zab  region  were  ordered  to  Syria  in  739, 
others  were  sent  by  the  governors  of  Lulume  and  of  Nairi, 
fifty-four  hundred  were  deported  from  Der  by  the  chief  com¬ 
mander  of  the  fortress;  all  these  were  settled  in  north  Syria. 
Little  groups,  a  few  hundred  each,  were  collected  from  the 
various  tribes  on  the  eastern  frontier  and  colonised  farther 
down  the  coast  in  the  Phoenician  cities. 

With  the  aid  of  such  data,  we  begin  to  realise  the  movements 
involved  in  the  system  of  deportation.  We  can  form  some 
conception  of  the  immense  amount  of  discomfort  if  not  of 
actual  suffering  which  resulted,  the  settlement  of  mountaineers 
in  the  hot  plains  and  vice  versa,  the  deaths  from  the  unwhole¬ 
some  surroundings  or  from  the  brutality  of  the  military  escort, 
the  complete  breakdown  of  the  economic  system  when  highly 
skilled  bankers  and  artisans  were  placed  in  countries  which 
afforded  a  bare  existence  and  rude  nomads  took  their  place  in 
the  old  culture  lands.  In  a  word,  we  have  the  same  phenom¬ 
enon  as  that  reproduced  twenty-six  centuries  later  with  an 
added  horror  in  these  same  unhappy  lands.  Of  such  and 


1  Amos  6:2;  Isaiah  10  :  9. 


ARARAT  IN  SYRIA 


189 


through  such  action  was  made  the  mingled  people  that  was 
to  be  the  later  Syrians. 

His  task  achieved,  Tiglath  Pileser  sums  up  those  who 
brought  him  tribute.  Beside  the  rulers  already  named,  we 
have  Menahem  of  Samaria,  Sibitti  Baal  of  Byblus,  Eniel  of 
Hamath,  Dadilu  of  Kasku,  Uassurme  of  Tabal,  Ushhitti  of 
Tuna,  Urballa  of  Tuhana,  Tuhamme  of  Ishtunda,  Urimme  of 
Hurikna,  and  Zabibe,  queen  of  the  Arabs.  We  can  forgive 
the  long  list  when  we  find  among  the  names  from  Asia  Minor 
the  first  references  to  Ciscessus,  Tyana,  Aspendus,  and  Chara- 
cene,  all  so  well  known  to  the  reader  of  the  later  classics. 
Nor  can  we  regret  the  first  appearance  in  history  of  the  older 
form  of  the  matriarchal  authority  current  in  Arabia,  the 
classic  example  of  which  is  the  legend  of  the  visit  of  the  Queen 
of  Sheba  to  Solomon.  Included  among  the  tribute  was  the 
“bird  whose  wings  are  coloured  blue”;  was  it  the  peacock 
whom  Indian  records  report  as  being  sent  to  Babylonia  ? 

Now  that  the  Haldian  forces  had  been  driven  out  of  Syria,  it 
was  decided  to  carry  the  war  into  Armenia.  An  Assyrian 
governor  was  operating  in  Ulluba,  under  the  barrier  range,  as 
early  as  739,  and  three  years  later  the  official  designation  was 
“against  the  foot  of  Mount  Nal.”  A  long  recital  of  the  con¬ 
quered  “forts  of  Urartu”  follows,  but  a  considerable  number 
had  been  taken  by  Tiglath  Pileser  I  and  Ashur-nasir-apal  II. 
Ulluba  was  made  a  province,  with  a  new  foundation  named 
Ashur-iqisha  as  capital.  Kirhu  was  handed  over  to  the  chief 
cellarer,  the  lands  along  the  Ulurush  or  west  Tigris  to  the 
governor  of  Nairi,  and  the  region  which  stretched  to  Qummuh 
and  the  Euphrates  to  the  turtanu. 

The  frontier  had  been  thrust  back  sufficiently  to  permit  a 
rapid  dash  into  the  heart  of  Haldia.  Tiglath  Pileser  came  home 
from  Syria  for  this  year  735.  Without  molestation,  he  pene¬ 
trated  to  the  fertile  plain  which  surrounded  the  Haldian 
capital  of  Tushpash.  He  set  up  a  stele  opposite  the  city  gate 
and  marched  majestically  without  a  rival  for  the  distance  of 
seventy  double  hours,  but  his  main  object  was  unattained. 
The  great  citadel  rock  at  Van  remained  impregnable  and 


190 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Sardurish  suffered  but  a  temporary  loss.  Affairs  had  reached 
a  stalemate;  the  Haldians  had  failed  in  the  lowlands,  the 
Assyrians  in  the  mountains,  and  this  was  to  remain  the  situ¬ 
ation  for  the  future. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  ISRAEL 

Satisfied  with  having  inflicted  humiliation  on  Haldia, 
Tiglath  Pileser  was  back  in  Syria  in  734.  The  line  of  Jehu  in 
Israel  had  ended,  as  prophecy  had  declared,1  with  the  fourth 
generation,  when  Zechariah  was  murdered  at  Ibleam  by  Shal- 
lum  after  a  reign  of  six  months.  Shallum  held  his  precarious 
seat  but  eight  days  and  then  gave  way  to  Menahem,  whose 
chief  claim  was  that  he  came  from  the  old  capital  of  Tirzah 
(744-735).  At  the  first  entrance  of  the  Assyrians  into  Syria, 
Menahem  hastened  to  make  his  peace,  levying  fifty  shekels  each 
on  his  sixty  thousand  men  of  wealth  that  he  might  offer  Tig- 
lath  Pileser  a  thousand  talents  of  silver.  So  the  hand  of  the 
king  of  Assyria  was  with  him,  and  he  turned  back  and  stayed 
not  there  in  the  land.2 

Not  all  Hebrews  approved  this  action.  The  tragic  experi¬ 
ence  of  Hosea  with  his  erring  wife  had  fixed  men’s  attention 
upon  him.  Through  his  trial,  he  had  come  to  recognise  that 
when  Israel  worshipped  the  local  Baals,  with  their  licentious 
cult,  she  was  untrue  to  her  husband  Yahweh.  Soon  he  began 
to  realise  the  social  implications  of  the  new  prosperity  and 
thundered  against  the  sins  of  swearing  and  breaking  faith, 
of  killing  and  stealing  and  commiting  adultery,  though  for 
this  the  priests  were  primarily  to  blame,  since  they  fed  on  the 
people’s  sin. 

Equally  did  Hosea  condemn  the  revolutions  which  were 
sapping  the  strength  of  the  land  at  the  very  moment  when  all 
was  needed  to  resist  the  aggressor.  The  political  history  of 
the  period  is  not  preserved  in  sufficient  fulness  to  permit  our 
understanding  of  all  the  prophet’s  allusions,  but  the  general 
tenor  cannot  be  mistaken. 

1  Amos  7 :  9;  cf.  Hos.  1:4.  2 II  Kings  15 :  8  ff. 

191 


192 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


The  priests,  the  house  of  Israel,  and  the  house  of  the  king 
must  hearken  to  the  judgment,  for  they  have  set  up  a  snare 
at  Mizpah  and  spread  a  net  on  Mount  Tabor  and  they  have 
made  deep  the  pit  of  Shittim.  Ephraim  and  Samaria  practise 
fraud,  the  thief  enters  the  house,  the  robber  bands  roam  with¬ 
out.  They  anoint  kings  in  their  wickedness  and  princes 
through  their  lies;  on  the  royal  birthday  they  make  their  king 
sick  and  the  princes  with  the  heat  of  wine,  while  the  monarch 
himself  has  stretched  out  his  hand  with  loose  fellows.  Their 
hearts  burn  like  an  oven  while  they  lie  in  wait;  their  anger  is 
damped  during  the  night,  but  in  the  morning  it  blazes  again 
like  a  flame  of  fire.  They  are  all  red  hot  like  an  oven,  they 
devour  their  chieftains;  all  their  kings  are  fallen,  yet  there  is 
none  of  them  that  calleth  upon  Yrahweh.  They  have  set  up 
kings,  but  they  were  not  approved  by  Yrahweh;  they  have  made 
princes,  but  he  has  not  recognised  them.  All  their  princes  are 
in  revolt,  therefore  Yrahweh  does  not  love  them.  They  say 
“We  have  no  ruler,  for  we  fear  not  Yahweh;  and  as  for  the 
king,  what  is  he  able  to  do  for  us?” 

By  such  internal  feuds,  Ephraim  has  been  forced  to  mix  with 
the  peoples;  he  is  as  a  cake  not  turned.  Strangers  devour  his 
strength  and  he  knows  it  not;  gray  hairs  begin  to  appear  and 
he  does  not  realise  it.  Yet  a  little  while  and  the  blood  spilled 
at  Jezreel  will  be  avenged  upon  the  house  of  Jehu;  and  with 
this  the  kingship  will  cease  in  Israel. 

The  pro-Assyrian  policies  of  the  rulers  furnished  special  cause 
for  the  prophet’s  anger.  When  Ephraim  saw  his  sickness  and 
Israel  his  sore,  instead  of  going  in  repentance  to  Yahweh, 
Ephraim  went  to  Assyria  and  Israel  to  the  Great  King,  though 
he  could  neither  heal  nor  cure  the  wound.  They  have  gone  to 
Assyria,  as  a  wild  ass  roving  alone,  and  Ephraim  has  sent  love 
gifts.  He  is  feeding  on  wind  and  is  following  after  the  east 
wind,  he  is  continually  multiplying  lies  and  desolation.  He  is 
like  a  silly  dove,  devoid  of  understanding;  they  call  unto  Egypt 
and  then  go  to  Assyria;  they  make  a  covenant  with  Assyria 
and  then  oil  is  brought  into  Egypt  to  buy  aid. 

Therefore  blow  the  horn  in  Gibeah  and  the  trumpet  in  Ra- 


THE  LAST  days  of  lseael 


;  oo 

-  -  V 


^  -1-  the  high  p Laces  whence  the  advance 


' 


500 


A 


larm  a:  the  House  of  Idols  raise  the 


ancten .  -  at- 
C*"T  ,0 


cm :  After  thee  0  Bern  a 

•  < 


T  -  T  * 

m  emu- on  w 


nnhraim  as  a  lion  and 


^  as  a  vo-ma 


Yah 

lion  to  the  house  of  Israel 


he  will  tear  and  stride  away  he  mil  <r 


-  ' _ _ or  w* n  ' 


— _ - 


w  deliver.  nether  their  ambassadors  re  to  Asswta  or  to 


m  t  h  ah~eh  will  sn  read 


_et  neon 


TT 


ne_  a :  n  m 

corns  of  tne . 

h  eav-r  s.  Xo  lr  r  =r  a  * 1 

- 

> 

-JT 

— 

in  Yah  wen’s  Land,  but  EDhrah 


mnean  rooc 


tLl 

T  T1 


’ t  •  j i.  •  _  t  r c  ea  t 


Assyria.  irtt  she, 


"•  n  ~  ^  ~  “■  r~ 


ud.  Men- 


*r-  V  -JG 

shah 

bum  men: :  me 

ir  r  moon  oc 

:ecrs  r 

T  T- 

CT-~  vhr 

r 

.7  7  T7 

X  * 

The  in- 

rt  .  es  _  -  m  -  '  '  A 

-  G - ~  —  -  -  - 

em 

habitants  o: 

:  Samaria  soml 

K 

r  ri  -*•  ~ 

» 

-  - 

■  _* 

-  -  -- 


in  the  abode  of  idols,  the  representation  of  Yahweh  in  bull 
farm  wh:h  Jeroboam  set  no  in  Bethel,  the  house  of  God  . 

re 


:e  oeoole  shah  ntr 


— 


T 1  T  - 

. a  tne  snnmana  attests  wnt 


.ere  shah  writhe  oner  its  fate. 


It  sh 


he 


area  a: 


Israel  shal 


to  the  Great  Kir,  r  Ephraim  : 
he  ashamed  for  its  idol. 

Samaria  is  cut  on  with  he: 

wane.  Gne  him  places  of  the  City  of  Idols  shah  be  destroyed 

rs  then 


7  •  7*7  T  •  •  u? 

g  gIcg  a  c:~  or  notssj 


C\  ^  m 

_ _ c 


'he  thorn 


•mu  :_e  tmst*e  sn.m  mow 


m  iTT 


•'Fa 


M  * 


upon 


d  the  thistl 

to  the  mountains  Cover  ns'  a 
Therefore  shall  a  tumult  s 


ns. 

recedes  a:  ah  the  fortresses  shah  be  iestroved  as  mamma 

*  v  « 

iestroved  Beth  Arbel  in  the  dan  of  rattle  when  mother  was 


:ed  in  nieces  with  her  oral 


e  a  one  unto 


^  TT  *  T 

s  B  F _  ~~  ~ 

Israel  in  Bethel  because  of  their  meat  wickedness  at  dawn  shah 
he  kina  of  Israel  be  utterly  cut  om: 

Menahem  slept  with  his  fathers  after  ten  years’  rule  and  his 
im  arable  sen  Fekahiah  red  mod.  in  his  stead  Scarcely  two 
years  TC-TG  elapsed  before  Bekah  one  of  his  generals  put 
h:~  to  death  in  tho  citadel  of  Samaria  with  :he  assistance  of 
mb;  Gileadites  ms  fellow  clansmen  Hosea  made  bitter  com¬ 
ment  Gilead  :s  a  city  of  men  who  work  iniquity  i:  is 


*  *'  > 


V  '.-:  :m  :.;v  Om  .\tv  t-t  a  ate  '  :  r  "  •  U*  l  .x 


i>tvrr--y  ;t  Vv  .tHcTH  Tv 


:l>  ;>\ 


v  Hirtwr.  J.Tux?  a  0 


194 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


with  blood;  as  bands  of  robbers  lie  in  wait  for  a  man,  so  the 
priests  hide  on  the  road,  they  murder  those  who  go  up  to 
Samaria.” 

Pekah’s  native  country  was  east  of  the  Jordan  and  in  close 
touch  with  Damascus;  we  can  understand  how  he  came  to  in¬ 
troduce  a  pro-Damascene  policy,  and  combined  with  Rezon 
against  Judah,  where  the  succession  of  incapable  rulers  in  the 
northern  kingdom  had  permitted  it  to  cast  off  the  Israelite 
yoke  and  to  expand  its  territory.  Swayed  by  a  patriotic  im¬ 
pulse,  Hosea  prophesied  the  wrath  of  Yahweh  against  the 
princes  of  Judah  who  had  removed  the  boundary  marks  and 
thus  had  freed  themselves  from  Israelite  domination.1 

The  conservative  country  nobles  assassinated  Amaziah 
(799-782)  at  Lachish,  whither  he  had  fled  for  refuge,  and  placed 
on  the  throne  the  sixteen-year-old  Azariah,  better  known  as 
Uzziah  (782-751).  His  long  reign  restored  the  glory  to  Judah. 
Shortly  after  his  accession,  he  fell  upon  Edom  and  secured 
Elath,  the  port  on  the  northern  extension  of  the  Red  Sea  which 
gave  access  to  the  lucrative  trade  along  the  Arabian  coast.2 
The  Ammonites  paid  him  tribute,  and  he  warred  against  the 
Arabians  that  dwelt  in  Gur  Baal  and  against  the  mysterious 
Meunim,  whom  some  have  identified  with  the  Minseans  of 
southwest  Arabia.  The  now  decadent  Philistines  lost  Gath, 
which  of  all  their  five  cities  most  threatened  Judah,  since  it  was 
placed  on  the  hills  which  commanded  one  of  its  exits.  Jabneh 
and  Ashdod  furnished  ports  on  the  Mediterranean.  Azariah 
loved  husbandry  as  well  as  commerce  and  possessed  husband¬ 
men  and  vine-dressers  in  the  mountains  and  the  cultivated 
fields,  while  cattle  pastured  in  the  low  hills  bordering  the  Phi¬ 
listine  plain  and  on  the  table-land  east  of  the  Jordan.  In  the 
waste  places  of  Judah  he  erected  towers  to  protect  the  herds 
and  flocks  which  were  watered  at  the  wells  he  dug.  Jerusalem 
received  from  this  wealth  new  towers  at  the  corner  gate,  the 
valley  gate,  and  the  angle  of  the  wall.3 

Azariah  became  a  leper  in  the  middle  of  his  reign  and  his 
duties  were  taken  over  by  Jotham.  During  the  regency,  or  in 
1  Hos.  5  :  10.  2 II  Kings  14 :  19  ff.  3 II  Chron.  26. 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  ISRAEL 


195 


the  short  time  he  ruled  alone,  Jotham  warred  with  the  Ammon¬ 
ites  and  forced  them  to  pay  a  yearly  tribute  of  a  hundred  tal¬ 
ents  of  silver  and  ten  thousand  cors  of  wheat  and  of  barley. 
The  building  programme  of  his  father  was  continued  with  the 
upper  gate  of  the  temple  and  the  wall  of  Ophel,  the  original 
site  of  the  city.1  A  youth  of  twenty,  Jehoahaz  by  name  but  in 
the  Biblical  writings  abbreviated  to  Ahaz  (736-721),  received 
the  bequest  of  the  state.  Judah’s  prosperity  rapidly  disap¬ 
peared  under  his  feeble  rule.  Rezon  succeeded  in  reasserting 
his  control  over  the  port  of  Elath,  the  Edomites  aided  in  the 
attack,  the  Philistines  wrested  away  the  recently  conquered 
territory,  invaded  the  hill  country  and  the  Negeb,  and  secured 
such  truly  Hebrew  cities  as  Beth  Shemesh,  Aijalon,  Timnah, 
and  Socoh.2 

There  now  came  upon  the  scene  the  greatest  of  Hebrew 
prophets,  Isaiah  the  son  of  Amoz.  Already  in  the  last  year 
of  Azariah,  he  had  felt  the  prophetic  call,  had  been  ordered  to 
preach  inevitable  destruction  until  the  land  should  be  utterly 
waste.  In  token  thereof,  his  son  received  the  name  of  Shear- 
jashub,  “Only  a  remnant  shall  return.”  He  began  his  career 
with  an  attempt  to  right  social  injustice  at  home,  where  a 
child  was  king  and  the  women  of  the  harem  bore  rule.  The 
people  had  forsaken  Yahweh,  the  national  deity,  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel,  and  it  was  in  the  train  of  this  national  apostasy 
that  there  had  followed  all  the  horrors  of  a  corrupt  culture. 
The  decline  of  Israel  had  been  the  opportunity  of  Judah,  and 
now  there  was  to  be  found  in  the  latter  country  all  the  evils  of 
a  more  complicated  civilisation  which  had  been  felt  in  Israel  a 
century  before.  The  rich  joined  house  to  house  and  lay  field 
to  field,  and  ground  the  faces  of  the  poor.  Bribery  was 
common,  justice  could  not  be  secured.  All  this  was  apostasy 
from  Yahweh,  and  there  was  to  come  a  day  when  the  Lord, 
Yahweh  of  Hosts,  was  to  take  away  from  Jerusalem  and  from 
Judah  stay  and  staff. 

Assyria  once  more  appeared  on  the  horizon,  and  Isaiah 
found  himself  forced  to  consider  the  broader  questions  of  inter- 

1 II  Kings  15 :  32  ff.;  II  Chron.  27.  2 II  Kings  16:1  ff.;  II  Chron.  28. 


196 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


national  relation.  The  traditional  hostility  between  Damascus 
and  Israel  led  the  prophet  at  first  to  expect  that  they  would 
destroy  each  other.  Yahweh  hath  sent  a  “word”  against 
Jacob,  it  hath  descended  upon  Israel;  all  the  people  shall  under¬ 
stand,  both  Ephraim  and  the  inhabitant  of  Samaria.  They 
say  in  the  pride  and  stoutness  of  their  hearts:  “The  bricks  have 
fallen  but  we  will  rebuild  with  hewn  stones;  the  scyamores 
have  been  cut  down  but  we  will  replace  them  with  cedars.” 
Instead,  Yahweh  will  raise  up  his  adversary  Rezon  and  will 
stir  up  his  enemies;  the  Aramaeans  before  and  the  Philistines 
behind  shall  devour  Israel  with  open  mouth.1 

Isaiah  was  disappointed,  for  the  two  made  common  cause 
against  Judah.  Ahaz  was  defeated  in  a  battle  before  Jerusa¬ 
lem,  and  tradition  long  remembered  how  Zichri,  a  mighty  man 
of  Ephraim,  slew  the  brother  of  Ahaz,  Maaseiah,  the  chamber- 
lain  Azrikam,  and  Elkanah,  the  second  in  command  under 
the  king2  (735).  No  wonder  the  hearts  of  Ahaz  and  of  his 
people  trembled  as  the  trees  of  the  forest  tremble  with  the 
wind. 

The  crisis  brought  Isaiah  definitely  into  his  position  of  ad¬ 
viser,  however  unwelcome,  in  diplomatic  affairs.  Taking  with 
him  his  son  Shear jashub,  whose  ill-omened  name  had  been 
amply  justified  by  the  recent  catastrophe,  he  set  forth  to  meet 
Ahaz.  He  found  the  youthful  ruler  at  the  end  of  the  conduit 
of  the  upper  pool,  on  the  highway  that  passed  by  the  fuller’s 
field,  and  bade  him  not  to  fear  these  two  tails  of  burnt-out  fire¬ 
brands  who  had  purposed  to  set  up  in  his  place  the  son  of 
Tabeel.  Instructed  to  ask  a  sign,  Ahaz  refused,  for  he  would 
not  tempt  Yahweh.  A  sign  he  was  given  none  the  less,  the 
sign  of  Emmanuel;  the  young  woman  now  with  child,  the  wife 
of  Ahaz,  should  bear  a  son  to  be  named  “God  with  us.”  Be¬ 
fore  he  should  have  knowledge  sufficient  to  refuse  evil  food  and 
choose  the  good,  the  land  whose  two  kings  were  the  terror  of 
Ahaz  should  be  forsaken.  But  there  was  an  addition.  From 

1  Isaiah  9:8  ff . ;  for  the  various  problems  of  Isaiah,  cf .  especially  the  com¬ 
mentary  by  G.  B.  Gray,  Isaiah,  in  “  International  Critical  Commentary.” 

2 II  Chron.  28:7. 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  ISRAEL 


197 


the  day  that  Ephraim  should  return  from  vexing  Ahaz,  Yahweh 
would  bring  upon  Judah  days  worse  than  those  which  had  gone 
before,  when  the  king  of  Assyria  should  arrive  in  person.1 

Isaiah  spoke  the  literal  truth  when  he  declared  that  he  and 
the  children  Yahweh  had  given  him  were  for  signs  and  won¬ 
ders.  Before  the  birth  of  his  next  son,  he  took  a  great  tablet 
and  inscribed  it  “For  Maher-shalal-hash-baz,”  with  Uriah, 
the  chief  priest,  as  witness.  With  this  ominous  name,  “Hasten 
spoil,  hurry  booty,”  the  new-born  child  was  christened,  and 
with  it  went  the  oracle,  “Before  this  child  shall  have  knowledge 
to  cry  ‘My  father ?  or  ‘My  mother/  the  riches  of  Damascus 
and  the  spoil  of  Syria  shall  be  paraded  before  the  Assyrian 
monarch.”  The  people  have  refused  the  softly  flowing  waters 
of  Shiloah  and  fear  Rezon  and  Remaliah’s  son;  Yahweh  is 
bringing  upon  them  the  water  of  the  River,  strong  and  many, 
the  king  of  Assyria  in  all  his  glory.  It  shall  flood  all  its  chan¬ 
nels  and  overflow  all  its  banks;  it  shall  sweep  onward  into 
Judah,  it  shall  reach  to  the  neck.2 

Despite  these  prophecies  or  perhaps  because  their  value  was 
discounted  in  his  eyes  by  the  threats  of  punishment  for  Judah 
as  well  as  for  Ephraim,  Ahaz  still  refused  to  believe  Isaiah,  and 
offered  up  his  eldest  son  in  the  fire  to  Yahweh.  On  the  failure 
of  this  supreme  sacrifice,  he  stripped  the  gold  and  silver  from 
palace  and  temple  and  sent  them  to  Tiglath  Pileser,  saying: 
“I  am  thy  servant  and  thy  son,  come  and  save  me.”  3 

The  appeal  of  Ahaz  fitted  exactly  the  plans  of  Tiglath  Pileser. 
Rezon  was  driven  into  his  city  gate  like  a  mouse,  his  chief  ad¬ 
visers  impaled,  his  gardens  and  orchards  hacked  down.  The 
siege  of  the  city  was  long,  and  Panammu  of  Samal  lost  his  life 
in  the  attack;  Rezon  was  killed,  and  the  line  of  kings  extin¬ 
guished.  The  inhabitants  were  deported  to  Kir,  and  central 
Syria  became  a  definite  dependency  of  Assyria. 

Isaiah  hailed  the  fall  of  Damascus  as  fulfilment  of  prophecy. 
Damascus  is  taken  away  from  being  a  city  and  has  been  made 
a  ruin  heap.  The  cities  of  Aroer  are  forsaken,  they  have  be¬ 
come  an  abode  for  flocks,  where  they  may  lie  down  and  none 
1  Isaiah  7.  2  Isaiah  8.  3 II  Kings  16  :  5  ff. 


198 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


may  make  them  afraid.  The  fortress  shall  cease  from  Ephraim 
and  the  kingdom  from  Damascus,  the  remnant  of  Syria  is  as  the 
glory  of  Israel.  It  is  as  when  the  harvester  gathers  the  stand¬ 
ing  grain  and  his  hands  reap  the  ears;  only  gleanings  are  left 
as  at  the  beating  of  an  olive-tree,  two  or  three  olives  in  the  top 
of  the  uppermost  bough,  four  or  five  in  the  outermost  branches 
of  the  fruit-tree.1 

Ahaz  paid  no  attention  to  the  words  of  the  prophet,  but 
hastened  to  Damascus  to  meet  his  lord,  the  Assyrian  king. 
In  Damascus  he  saw  a  certain  altar,  connected  with  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  Ashur  and  the  king.  The  pattern  was  promptly  sent 
to  the  chief  priest  of  the  royal  temple  at  Jerusalem,  that  same 
Uriah  whom  Isaiah  had  taken  to  witness  that  Damascus 
should  be  destroyed,  and  by  the  return  of  Ahaz  the  altar  was 
ready  for  use.  On  this  altar,  now  called  the  “ great  altar”  par 
excellence,  Ahaz  ordered  that  there  should  be  burned  the 
morning  burnt  offering  and  the  evening  meal  offering  which  had 
formerly  been  the  perquisite  of  Yahweh  alone,  the  royal  burnt 
and  meal  offerings,  the  burnt,  meal,  and  drink  offerings  of  all 
the  people,  and  here  should  be  sprinkled  all  the  blood  of  the 
burnt  offerings  and  all  the  blood  of  the  sacrifices.  The  brazen 
altar  which  had  formerly  stood  before  the  temple  of  Yahweh 
was  moved  to  the  north  of  the  new  altar,  and  henceforth  was 
to  have  no  offerings,  it  was  to  be  used  only  for  the  purpose 
of  divination. 

No  longer  was  Yahweh  to  rule  as  king  in  Judah,  he  must  be 
content  to  be  counted  a  minor  deity,  whose  chief  function  was 
the  delivery  of  oracular  responses.  The  brazen  oxen  which 
supported  the  great  sea  and  represented  the  power  and  majesty 
of  Yahweh  were  no  longer  appropriate,  so  the  laver  was  placed 
on  a  stone  pedestal.  A  throne  for  the  new  divine  king  was  set 
up  in  the  house  where  once  Yahweh  had  reigned  in  power,  and 
the  royal  entry  was  turned  about  by  Ahaz  from  before  the 
face  of  the  statue  of  the  Assyrian  king.  Isaiah  denounced 
with  vigour  the  men  of  Judah,  but  Ahaz  was  logical  according 
to  his  lights.  He  had  appealed  to  Yahweh,  even  to  the  sacri- 

1  Isaiah  17. 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  ISRAEL 


199 


fice  of  his  first-born,  and  Yahweh  had  failed  him  :  Ashur  and 
the  Assyrian  king  had  brought  him  salvation :  therefore,  thev 
were  mightier  gods  than  1  ahweh  and  were  worthy  of  supplant¬ 
ing  him  in  the  house  which  had  been  formerly  his  alone.1 

Ashur’ s  anger  was  next  poured  out  against  the  Arabs  who 
had  aided  Damascus.  Samsi  had  succeeded  Zabibe  as  queen, 


Fig.  S9.  PURSUIT  OF  AX  ARAB. 


and,  like  her  predecessor,  had  transgressed  against  the  oath  or 
the  god  Shamash,  whose  name  she  bore.  Severe  were  her  suf¬ 
ferings  if  we  trust  the  Assyrian  statistics  of  loss,  a  hundred 
thousand  men,  thirty  thousand  camels,  twenty  thousand  cattle, 
but  such  a  census  has  never  been  known  in  Desert  Arabia,  at 
least  outside  the  pages  of  the  Arabian  Xights.  On  the  reliefs, 
two  spearmen  mounted  on  horses  trample  dead  Arabs  as  they 
pursue  a  nomad  clad  only  in  a  high-girdled  tunic  who  guides  a 
fleet  dromedary  by  a  rope  about  the  nose.  The  artist  intended 
to  indicate  that  the  nomad  realised  he  was  about  to  be  caught 
and  was  stretching  out  his  hand  in  supplication;  to  the  irrev¬ 
erent  modern,  he  seems  to  be  turning  back  in  mockery  and 
waving  his  pursuers  such  a  derisive  farewell  as  only  an  Arab 
can  make.  Like  a  female  wild  ass,  we  are  told,  Samsi  fled  to 
the  city  of  Bazu,  a  place  of  thirst,  and  a  relief  professes  to 

1 II  Kings  10 : 10  ff. 


200 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


show  her  barefoot  and  tearing  her  hair,  the  while  she  carefully 
balances  one  of  the  eleven  sacrificial  jars  she  is  said  to  have 
presented  after  her  spirit  had  been  broken  by  hunger. 

Gifts  from  other  tribes  well  known  to  later  history  ended  the 
campaign.  The  Sabseans  were  just  wresting  the  hegemony  of 
south  Arabia  from  the  Minseans  and  desired  Assyrian  recogni¬ 
tion.  The  Haiappai  find  their  eponymous  ancestor  in  the 
Ephah,  son  of  Midian,  whose  former  location  was  east  of  the 
Gulf  of  Aqaba  and  along  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Red  Sea;  the 
name  also  occurs  among  the  Calebites,  in  the  south  of  Judah.1 
Tema  is  another  son  of  Midian2  and  from  its  oasis  paradise  has 
come  a  stele  which  reveals  the  strong  Assyrian  influence  exerted 
through  these  invasions  and  through  the  more  peaceful  march 
of  the  caravans.  On  one  side  stands  the  god  Salm  of  Hajam, 
with  conical  hat,  fringed  and  draped  robe  of  the  Assyrian  fash¬ 
ion,  his  staff  in  his  left  hand,  and  above  him  the  Assyrian 
winged  disk.  Below  is  the  dedicator,  Salm-shezib,  the  priest, 
with  his  hand  raised  in  prayer  before  the  altar.  The  inscrip¬ 
tion  on  the  front  gives  the  reason  for  its  erection,  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  a  new  deity,  for  in  the  twenty-second  year  Salm,  god 
of  Mahram,  and  Shingala  and  Ashira,  gods  of  Tema,  endowed 
Salm  of  Hajam  with  sixteen  palms  from  the  field  and  five 
from  the  royal  estates,  yearly.  Neither  gods  nor  men  shall 
drive  out  Salm-shezib,  son  of  Petosiri,  from  this  home,  neither 
his  seed  nor  his  name,  priests  in  this  house  forever.3  The 
father  of  Salm-shezib  bears  an  Egyptian  name,  but  his  own  is 
Assyrian,  the  figures  betray  traces  of  Assyrian  connections, 
the  winged  disk  has  the  Assyrian  form,  and  perhaps  Ashira  is 
for  Ashur;  the  words  for  “grant,”  for  “royal  estate,”  for  “stele” 
itself,  all  are  borrowed  from  the  technical  terminology  of  As¬ 
syria.  Such  traces  of  Assyrian  influence  furnish  what  basis 
there  is  for  the  claim  that  Tiglath  Pileser  formed  a  province, 
constructed  a  palace,  and  appointed  the  Idibailai  tribe  over 
the  others. 

1  Gen.  25  :  4;  Isaiah  60  :  6;  I  Chron.  2  :  46  ff. 

2  Gen.  25  :  15;  Isaiah  21 :  14;  Jer.  25  :  23;  Job  6  :  19. 

3  CIS.,  II,  113;  Cooke,  North-Semitic  Inscriptions,  195  ff. 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  ISRAEL 


201 


Tiglath  Pileser  himself  turned  against  Pekah,  whose  native 
country,  Gilead,  was  easily  reached  from  Damascus,  and  then 
to  northeast  Galilee,  the  home  of  the  Naphtali  tribe — Ijon, 
the  beautiful  valley  between  Hermon  and  the  northern  exten¬ 
sion  of  the  Galilean  hills;  Abel  of  the  house  of  Maacah,  its 
most  important  town  on  the  western  slopes,  the  “city  and 
mother  in  Israel”  which  Sheba  raised  in  the  vain  attempt  to 
unite  Israel  against  David  and  Judah;  Kadesh,  the  sacred 
city  of  refuge,  the  home  of  Barak,  where  he  and  Deborah  col¬ 
lected  the  tribesmen  against  Sisera;  Hazor,  whence  proceeded 
King  Jab  in,  whose  general  Sisera  was;  and  finally  Janoah.1 
From  Bara  came  two  hundred  and  twenty-six  captives,  six 
hundred  and  twenty-five  from  another  whose  name  has  been 
lost,  four  hundred  and  thirty  from  Hanaton,  whose  name  had 
kept  in  memory  the  heretic  monotheist,  Ikhnaton  of  Egypt, 
long  after  he  had  been  forgotten  at  home,2  six  hundred  and 
fifty  from  Cana,  where  the  Gospels  place  the  marriage  feast, 
the  same  from  another  lost  city,  thirteen  thousand  five  hun¬ 
dred  and  twenty  from  Jotapata,  six  hundred  and  fifty  from 
Iron.  Pekah  (734-732)  was  deposed  and  Hoshea  (732-723) 
was  given  his  place. 

Passing  by  the  cities  of  Aruma  and  Marum,  the  latter  con¬ 
nected  with  those  waters  of  Merom  by  which  another  Jabin 
was  said  to  have  been  defeated  by  Joshua,3  Tiglath  Pileser 
marched  to  free  Ahaz  from  the  danger  of  his  other  serious 
enemy,  the  Philistines.  Mitinti  of  Ascalon  had  disavowed 
the  agreement  and  sinned  against  the  oath;  on  the  news  of 
Rezon’s  defeat  he  disappeared,  and  his  son  Rukibti  came  out 
to  the  Assyrian  camp  for  investiture.  Hanun  left  Gaza  as 
the  Assyrians  approached,  but  the  threat  of  his  country  being 
made  a  province  forced  him  to  desert  the  Egyptian  cause.  By 
this  success,  the  last  important  town  on  the  Syrian  side  of  the 
desert  was  brought  under  Assyrian  influence  and  Egypt  lay 
exposed  to  invasion. 

While  Tiglath  Pileser  was  making  his  position  firm  in  Baby- 

1 II  Sam.  20;  Judges  4;  Joshua  11;  II  Kings  15  ff. 

2  Joshua  19  :  14;  Breasted,  History  of  Egypt ,  355  ff.  3  Joshua  11. 


202 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Ion,  his  generals  were  busy  on  the  western  frontier,  where 
Uassurme  of  Tabal  was  deposed  and  his  place  taken  by  the 
son  of  a  nobody  named  Hulli;  the  commander-in-chief  was  then 
sent  on  to  Tyre,  where  Met  ten  won  absolution  for  a  temporary 
lukewarmness  by  the  enormous  sum  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
talents  of  gold  (728).  The  next  year,  the  last  embers  of  revolt 
were  stamped  out  in  Damascus. 

Assyria  was  never  more  a  military  monarchy  than  under  the 
last  Tiglath  Pileser.  The  reign  was  dominated  by  military 
considerations,  and  culture  played  a  decidedly  secondary  part. 
He  did  build  a  palace  at  Kalhu,  and  we  possess  his  enthusiastic 
description.  Its  site  was  the  Tigris  bank  and  its  area  was 
greater  than  those  of  the  kings  his  fathers.  Before  it  stood  a 
colonnade  like  a  palace  of  the  Hittite  land.  Not  the  model 
alone  was  Western,  for  the  construction  was  of  sweet-smelling 
cedar  and  of  other  woods  from  the  Lebanon,  the  Anti-Lebanon, 
and  the  Amanus.  Doors  of  cedar  and  cypress,  double-leaved, 
whose  entrance  is  blessed,  whose  scent  refreshes  the  heart,  with 
plating  of  bronze  and  silver  were  covered  and  fixed  in  the  gates. 
Lions  and  bull  colossi,  whose  figures  were  wrought  with  ex¬ 
ceeding  cunning,  clothed  with  power,  were  set  up  in  the  en¬ 
trance  for  a  wonder.  Thresholds  of  white  alabaster  made 
glorious  the  exit.  A  relief  of  stone,  the  guard  of  the  great  gods, 
the  product  of  the  world  abyss,  encompassed  the  side  walls. 
“The  palace  of  joy,  granting  abundance,  blessing  the  king, 
bringing  their  builder  a  good  old  age/’  they  were  called.  The 
gates  were  named  “Gates  of  Righteousness,  ordering  aright 
the  judgment  of  the  princes  of  the  four  world  regions,  making 
old  the  tribute  of  the  mountain  and  the  sea,  bringing  the  ful¬ 
ness  of  the  land  before  the  presence  of  the  king  their  lord.” 

Of  all  this  glory,  but  a  few  fragments  are  preserved.  The 
reliefs  already  described  are  poorly  executed  and  contrast 
most  unfavourably  with  those  brought  from  the  palace  of 
Ashur-nasir-apal.  The  beginnings  and  ends  of  the  slabs  which 
bore  the  royal  annals  have  been  chiselled  off  by  instruction  of 
a  successor  who  planned  to  use  them  for  building  material. 
Thanks  to  the  vandalism  of  Esarhaddon,  there  are  whole  years 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  ISRAEL 


203 


for  which  we  lack  the  official  records,  for  others  we  have  barely 
a  word  preserved  here  and  there.  The  actual  loss  may  be 
easily  exaggerated,  for  the  missing  portions  would  have  added 
more  names  of  cities  plundered  and  tribes  subdued,  but  the 
remainder  would  have  consisted  of  the  same  formulas  with 
which  we  have  become  so  wearisomely  familiar.  There  has 
been  certainly  no  loss  to  literature. 

Historical  imagination  is  nevertheless  sadly  lacking  in  the 
writer  or  reader  who  cannot  see  behind  the  formulas,  for  these 
matter-of-fact  statements,  so  statistical  in  their  monotony, 
breathe  the  very  spirit  of  the  practical  administrator.  We  need 
only  observe  how  the  moribund  empire  came  to  life  to  realise 
that  Tiglath  Pileser  was  a  military  genius;  that  he  was  equally 
fitted  to  cope  with  the  most  difficult  administrative  problems 
should  be  equally  obvious.  In  every  sense,  the  regeneration  of 
the  empire  was  his  personal  achievement. 

He  did  not  initiate  the  provincial  organisation,  but  he  made 
one  important  change,  so  much  so  that  he  may  well  be  con¬ 
sidered  the  second  founder.  Previously,  the  provinces  had 
been  rather  large,  and  in  a  few  cases,  such  as  Harran  and 
Rasappa,  almost  enormous;  they  were  subdivided  into  urasi, 
always  centring  around  an  important  town  and  in  some  cases 
representing  in  themselves  former  “kingdoms”  of  considerable 
size.  If  Tiglath  Pileser  had  been  himself  the  governor  of 
Kalhu,  we  can  understand  how  it  was  that  he  quickly  reduced 
the  area  of  these  provinces  until  they  ceased  to  be  powerful 
enough  to  be  a  danger.  Hitherto  it  has  been  possible  to  name 
each  province  as  it  was  formed  and  to  trace  its  general  history; 
hereafter  the  new  provinces  have  little  more  significance  than 
the  counties  of  the  average  American  state.  A  large  propor¬ 
tion  cannot  be  located  on  the  map,  few  of  their  chiefs  ever 
attained  the  rank  of  eponym,  the  cursus  of  eponyms  after  a 
time  was  abandoned.  Most  significant  of  all,  no  longer  were 
the  officials  who  named  the  year  permitted  to  set  up  their 
stelae  in  the  old  capital  of  Ashur.  u 

How  the  new  system  of  consolidation  worked  is  illustrated 
by  the  case  of  Bel  Harran-bel-usur.  Tiglath  Pileser  was  none 


204 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


too  sure  of  his  throne  in  his  first  years,  and  so  great  a  territorial 
magnate  must  be  handled  gently.  He  was  appointed  chamber- 
lain  of  the  palace,  in  rank  second  only  to  the  turtanu  himself, 
and  in  741  he  was  eponym  and  named  the  year.  The  stele  on 
which  he  had  insulted  the  weak  Shalmaneser  IV  remained  un¬ 
changed,  save  that  the  single  reference  to  his  nominal  ruler 
was  chiselled  out,  and  the  name  of  his  master  took  its  place. 
Tiglath  Pileser  bided  the  time  when  the  central  government 
might  be  restored.  The  last  year  of  Tiglath  Pileser  shows  one 
of  the  rare  instances  of  demotion  in  the  Assyrian  lists.  Bel 
Harran-bel-usur  was  no  longer  chamberlain  of  the  palace;  he 
had  been  assigned  to  one  of  the  decidedly  lesser  governorships, 
that  of  Guzana.  Centralisation  was  completing  its  work. 

Nevertheless,  the  system  of  granting  chartered  rights  was 
too  strongly  intrenched  to  be  entirely  rooted  out.  As  late  as 
730,  we  find  Tiglath  Pileser  inditing  for  Zakur  a  charter  with 
full  immunities.  If  the  estate  had  been  taken  from  Mutakkil 
Ashur  without  adequate  compensation,  this  would  explain 
how  he  came  to  be  a  supporter  of  Sargon,  who  rewarded  him 
with  the  province  of  Guzana,  of  which  the  eunuch  Bel  Harran- 
bel-usur  was  now  deprived. 

Shalmaneser  was  called  from  his  province  of  Simirra  to  be 
the  fifth  and  last  monarch  of  that  name  (728-722).  No  sooner 
had  he  left  the  Phoenician  coast  than  one  of  the  Delta  Kings 
of  Egypt,  Sibu  or  So,  began  a  series  of  intrigues  which  resulted 
in  the  disaffection  of  Tyre,  of  its  vassal,  Sidon,  and  of  Accho 
and  Samaria.  The  mere  appearance  of  Shalmaneser  was  suffi¬ 
cient  to  induce  the  majority  to  surrender,  more  especially  as 
surrender  brought  freedom  from  the  financial  control  of  Tyre. 
Eager  to  avenge  their  wrongs  and  to  destroy  a  dangerous  trade 
rival,  the  pro-Assyrian  Phoenicians  furnished  Shalmaneser 
with  sixty  ships  manned  by  eight  hundred  oarsmen ;  Tyre  could 
muster  but  twelve,  but  so  well  were  these  served  that  she  ut¬ 
terly  defeated  her  opponents  and  captured  five  hundred  sailors. 
Shalmaneser  hastened  back,  but  Tyre  was  safe  on  her  island 
and  the  Assyrians  no  longer  possessed  a  fleet.  They  were  re¬ 
duced  to  blockading  the  streams  and  the  magnificent  springs 


THE  LAST  DAYS  OF  ISRAEL 


205 


southeast  of  the  city.  The  wells  within  the  walls  were  suffi¬ 
cient  for  actual  needs,  and  the  quality  was  not  bad.  The  five 
years*  siege  ended  in  failure,  and  Shalmaneser  made  a  treaty 
with  Tvre  which  remained  for  long  the  basis  for  future  exac- 
tions.  Luli  of  Tyre  was  even  able  to  bring  back  the  rebel 
city  of  Citium  on  the  island  of  Cyprus,  which  had  been  de¬ 
luded  by  the  appeal  of  independent  trade  relations  with  the 
empire.1 

Xo  mercy  could  be  expected  by  the  inhabitants  of  Samaria, 
and  even  if  they  might,  ravaged  Israel  could  not  pay  a  crush¬ 
ing  indemnity.  They  resisted  bravely  for  three  years,  but  were 
at  last  forced  to  admit  the  besiegers  (723).  Shalmaneser  had 
no  joy  of  his  victory,  for  a  few  months  later  he  himself  fell  be¬ 
fore  the  usurper  S argon. 2 


1  Jos.,  Ant.  IX,  2S3  ff. 


•  II  Kings  17 : 1  ff.;  IS :  9  ff. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT 

Sargon  the  Younger  might  well  boast  himself  a  self-made 
man;  instead,  he  boasts  the  three  hundred  and  fifty  kings  who 
ruled  Assyria  before  him.  Further  details  of  his  ancestry  are 
hidden  by  a  discreet  silence.  His  son  Sennacherib  claimed 
descent  from  such  heroes  as  Gilgamesh,  Enkidu,  Humbaba, 
and  the  like.  This  was  going  a  little  too  far,  and  Esarhaddon 
discovered  the  genealogy  which  was  thereafter  accepted  as 
standard  and  according  to  which  Sargon  was  a  scion  of  that 
Bel-bani,  son  of  Adasi  (1826-1806),  who  founded  a  new  and 
perhaps  non-Assyrian  dynasty.1 

Many  centuries  before,  some  thirty  according  to  the  chrono¬ 
logical  scheme  accepted  in  his  day,  there  had  lived  a  mighty 
hero  named  Sargon,  first  to  make  sure  the  rule  of  the  Semite 
in  Babylonia  and  to  report  conquests  reaching  to  Syria.  In 
assuming  his  name,  Sargon  made  him  a  sort  of  patron  saint. 
The  archaism  in  art  and  religion,  the  development  of  the  birth 
legend,  so  close  to  that  of  the  child  Moses,  the  pious  preserva¬ 
tion  of  the  liver  omens  through  which  the  elder  sovereign  had 
won  his  victories,  all  showed  that  the  new  monarch  considered 
himself  the  Hater”  Sargon  the  legend  had  seemed  to  prophesy. 

A  slight  laid  upon  the  city  of  Ashur  by  Shalmaneser  proved 
his  undoing.  Ashur  became  angry  at  the  sacrilegious  wretch 
who  feared  not  the  lord  of  all,  overthrew  his  rule  in  the  wrath 
of  his  heart,  called  Sargon  to  the  kingship,  lifted  up  his  head, 
gave  him  sceptre,  throne,  and  crown.  To  establish  his  royalty, 

1  For  detailed  sketch  of  the  reign,  cf.  Western  Asia  in  the  Days  of  Sargon  of 
Assyria,  1908;  the  excavations  at  Dur  Sharrukin  (Khorsabad),  Botta  and  Flan- 
din,  Monuments  de  Nineve,  184^-1850;  V.  Place,  Nineve  et  VAssyrie,  1867-1870; 
latest  edition  of  inscriptions,  H.  Winckler,  Keilschrifttexte  Sargons,  1889;  new  edi¬ 
tion  in  preparation  by  author  of  this  history.  Discussion  of  sculptures,  Bonomi, 
Nineveh  and  Its  Palaces,  147  ff. 


206 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT  207 


Sargon  granted  freedom  from  tribute  to  the  sacred  cities  of 
Ashur  and  Harran,  and  every  citizen  found  his  privileges  in¬ 
creased  as  never  before.  They  were  freed  from  the  levy  of  the 
whole  land  for  military  purposes,  from  the  summons  of  the 
levy  master;  like  the  other  temple  cities  of  Assyria,  they  were 
freed  of  all  dues.  The  charter  containing  the  grant  of  privi¬ 
leges  was  written  on  a  great  silver  tablet  which  was  set  up 
before  the  image  of  Ashur.  Thus  Sargon,  the  seed  of  Ashur, 
the  city  of  knowledge,  assumed  the  burden  of  empire,  and  the 
priests  received  the  dues  he  owed  as  feudal  vassal  of  the  gods 
Anu  and  Dagan. 

Syria  was  neglected  for  three  years,  and  by  720  the  whole 
country  was  aflame  with  revolt.  The  centres  were  Gaza,  still 
ruled  by  Hanun,  and  Hamath,  under  Iaubidi,  whose  name 
furnishes  as  startling  proof  of  the  north  Syrian  worship  of 
the  Hebrew  Yahweh  as  does  Azariah  of  Samal.  The  north¬ 
ern  Judah  was  ruled  by  Bar  Rekub,  whose  boasted  love  for 
Tiglath  Pileser  did  not  extend  to  the  supplanter  of  his  dynasty. 
Simirra  had  been  the  capital  of  the  province  whence  Shal¬ 
maneser  had  passed  to  the  kingship.  Arpad,  Damascus,  Tyre, 
and  Samaria  had  been  recently  independent. 

The  allies  did  not  act  in  concert,  for  the  Assyrians  were  too 
quick  for  them.  Iaubidi  took  up  his  position  at  Qarqara  on 
the  historic  spot  where  once  before  Syrians  had  met  Assyrians 
in  the  field.  The  omen  did  not  hold  good,  for  this  time  the 
patriots  were  defeated.  The  loss  of  the  battle  meant  the  loss 
of  Hamath,  whose  low-lying  site  in  the  great  valley  trench 
offered  little  opportunity  for  defence.  The  flower  of  its  troops 
was  added  to  the  standing  army  with  which  Sargon  was  re¬ 
placing  the  antiquated  feudal  levy,  and  a  colony  of  six  thousand 
three  hundred  Assyrians  under  an  Assyrian  governor  took  their 
place.  Samal  was  fired  by  its  conquerors  and  made  a  province 
also. 

Hanun  was  defeated  before  the  gates  of  Gaza  and  fell  back 
toward  Egypt.  Sibu  summoned  hi^>  lieutenant,  and  the  two 
armies  met  at  Raphia,  where  before  the  Great  War  was  the 
formal  boundary  between  Egypt  and  Palestine.  Sibu  fled  “as 


208 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


a  shepherd  deprived  of  his  flock/'  and  Syria  knew  his  inrigues 
no  more. 

The  leading  rebels  were  brought  to  Assyria  to  fac  their 
enraged  lord.  The  first  success  of  the  reign  needec  to  be 
emphasised.  A  horrible  punishment,  only  too  common  mong 
all  nations  in  these  rude  times,  was  decreed  for  Iaubidi.  egged 
to  the  ground  spread-eagle  fashion,  the  executioner  sized  a 
short  curved  knife  and,  beginning  with  his  right  arm,  flayd  him 
alive.  Hanun  was  chained  hand  and  foot  with  ring  ad  bar. 
The  remaining  rebels,  short-bearded,  with  tasselled  cas  and 
short  coats  over  long  fringed  garments,  knelt  in  abjec  sub¬ 
mission,  and  at  least  saved  their  lives.  A  vivid  bas-relieon  the 
walls  of  the  new  capital  served  as  warning  against  iriuation 
of  revolt.  The  relief  was  unknown  in  far-away  Palestim  where 
the  natives,  in  despite  of  their  former  Christianity  an  their 
present  Islam,  reverence  the  hero  as  the  Prophet  Hnun  in 
the  village  which  is  still  his  house,  Bet  Hanun. 

No  attempt  was  made  to  follow  up  the  advantage  ecured 
and  attack  Egypt.  Sargon  was  at  Ashur,  and  no  subcdinate 
dared  risk  the  responsibility.  Five  years  later  (715)  th  annals 
speak  of  a  tribute  from  Piru  of  Musri,  that  is,  Phaaoh  of 
Egypt,  which  by  the  usual  rule  would  indicate  that  peee  had 
been  declared  between  the  former  antagonists.1  Furter  ad¬ 
vance  upon  Egypt  was  unwise  until  a  firmer  hold  was  ecured 
on  Syria;  therefore,  the  next  few  years  saw  much  atention 
devoted  to  settlement  of  its  affairs.  The  city-states  wteh  had 
not  been  implicated  directly  in  the  revolt  were  allowe  to  re¬ 
tain  their  autonomy  under  their  local  kings.  Thos  which 
were — Samal,  Simirra,  Damascus,  the  mainland  Tyre,  nd  Sa¬ 
maria — soon  appear  with  Assyrian  governors. 

In  the  case  of  the  last,  the  native  records  tell  us  a  litte  more 
of  this  process  of  settlement.  The  storming  of  the  civ  took 
place  at  the  very  end  of  Shalmaneser's  reign,  and  all  urther 
arrangements  were  left  to  Sargon.  Twenty-seven  tbusand 
of  the  leading  citizens  were  deported  to  Mesopotana  and 

1  Or  it  may  have  been  made  with  Bocchoris,  son  of  Tefnakhte.  reasted, 
Egypt,  550. 


»  i  »i «i»!  ""'""w;  *&}}< 


■00§!§i H 


■sSflsM 

^pyt, WSL 


■  "V 

*■  ti<'-  *i 


■ 


<mU '  "  *■ 

,-.**' 


'  ».  -  A 


PQ 

5 

r^i 

'w' 

GO 

GO 

s 

Q 

Z 

J 

i— i 
f< 

GO 

fc 


a 


H 

|-£ 


<3 


6 

t£ 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT  209 


settled  in  Guzana,  Halah,  and  the  country  along  the  Habur 
River.1  Thus  was  formed  the  nucleus  for  that  community  of 
Jews  which  long  made  Mesopotamia  the  real  focus  of  Jewish 
thought.  Not  long  after,  Tab-sil-esharra,  governor  of  Ashur, 
reports  a  field  in  Halah  whose  revenues  were  given  to  the  Nabu 
temple  of  Dur  Sharrukin.2  The  serfs  who  paid  these  dues  were 
probably  Hebrews. 

Samaria  was  too  important  a  site  to  be  abandoned.  The 
survivors  were  treated  as  Assyrians  and  ordered  to  pay  the 
usual  tribute  to  their  governor.  The  system  of  deportation 
was  in  full  swing  and  no  less  than  four  instances  occur  in  this 
reign.  Immediately  after  the  uprising  of  720,  two  Aramaean 
tribes  from  Der  were  settled.  Three  years  later,  two  Hittite 
tribes  were  placed  in  Damascus,  two  Arab  tribes  were  assigned 
to  Samaria,  and  Deioces  of  Media  and  Itti  of  Allabria  were  in¬ 
terned  in  Hamath. 

Again  the  Hebrew  scriptures  illustrate  the  process.  The 
men  of  Hamath  who  were  settled  in  Samaria  were  doubtless 
participants  in  the  revolt  of  720,  and  perhaps  the  same  is  true 
of  the  men  from  Sepharvaim  in  north  Syria  and  the  unknown 
Avva.  The  men  of  Cutha  and  Babylon  must  have  been  forced 
to  emigrate  at  a  later  period.  At  the  first,  so  the  naive  account 
runs,  they  feared  not  Yahweh;  for  this,  Yahweh  sent  lions 
among  them,  and  some  of  them  were  killed.  So  they  sent  to 
the  Assyrian  king,  saying:  “The  nations  which  thou  hast 
carried  away  and  placed  in  the  cities  of  Samaria  know  not  the 
law  of  the  god  of  the  land;  therefore  hath  he  sent  lions  among 
them,  and  behold  they  slay  them,  because  they  know  not  the 
law  of  the  land.” 

Sargon  recognised  the  reasonableness  of  this  request  and 
ordered  one  of  the  exiled  Hebrew  priests  sent  back  to  teach 
them  this  very  necessary  religious  system.  At  Bethel,  where 
the  eponymous  ancestor  of  Israel  had  seen  the  ladder  and 
where  Israel’s  first  king  had  set  up  the  golden  bull  of  Yahweh, 
the  cult  was  reorganised.  One  of  his  sacred  sites  was  thus 
preserved  for  Yahweh,  the  remainder  of  the  high  places  were 

2  H.  480. 


1 II  Kings  18:11. 


210 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


handed  over  to  the  gods  brought  in  by  the  new  settlers.  The 
men  of  Babylon  made  Succoth-benoth,  the  men  of  Cutha  made 
Nergal,  the  men  of  Hamath  made  Ashima,  the  Avvites  made 
Nibhaz  and  Tartak,  while  the  men  of  Sepharvaim  burned  their 
children  to  Adrammelech  and  Anammelech.  “So,”  concludes 
the  chronicler,  “they  feared  Yahweh  but  made  priests  for  the 
high  places  from  their  own  people  to  sacrifice  for  them  in  the 
temples  on  the  high  places;  they  did  indeed  fear  Yahweh,  but 
they  also  served  their  own  gods,  after  the  manner  of  the  na¬ 
tions  from  whose  midst  they  had  been  carried  away.”  1 

How  great  was  the  disturbance  to  the  economic  life  caused 
by  these  deportations  is  indicated  by  the  sudden  drop  in  the 
culture  as  found  in  the  excavations  in  Palestine.  More  under¬ 
standable  is  this  if  the  settlement  of  the  Arab  tribes  is  mere 
acknowledgment  of  the  accomplished  fact.  As  the  Syrian 
localities  became  gradually  deserted,  less  through  the  rare 
Assyrian  attacks  than  through  the  incessant  and  murderous 
civil  wars,  resistance  to  the  never-ceasing  pressure  from  the 
desert  weakened,  and  the  Arabs  pushed  in,  as  they  are  doing 
to-day  in  the  disorganisation  which  has  followed  the  Great 
War.  If  only  they  paid  a  nominal  tribute,  the  government  in 
distant  Assyria  offered  no  objection. 

Of  the  four  desert  tribes  mentioned,  Tamudi,  Ibadidi,  Marsi- 
mani,  Haiappai,  the  first  enjoyed  a  peculiar  fame  in  later  legend. 
Thamud,  so  ran  the  oft-repeated  story  of  the  Koran,  was  a 
great  tribe  in  the  Days  of  the  Ignorance,  the  successor  of  the 
prehistoric  Ad.  In  the  pride  of  their  hearts,  they  made  from 
the  plains  castles  and  dug  out  the  mountains  into  houses. 
Unto  them  came  the  prophet  Salih,  preaching  the  doctrine  of 
the  Unity.  They  rejected  the  manifest  sign  of  the  she  camel, 
sprung  from  the  rock  in  witness  against  them,  they  hardened 
their  hearts  and  hamstrung  her.  A  great  earthquake  brought 
upon  them  their  judgment,  and  when  morning  broke  they  lay 
on  their  faces,  dead  in  their  houses.2  Such  was  the  tale  so  of¬ 
ten  quoted  by  the  prophet  Muhammad  to  point  the  moral  to 
those  who  would  not  accept  his  own  teaching;  Thamud  was  in 
1 II  Kings  17  :  24  ff.  2  Sura  7 ;  71  ff.;  14. 


Fig.  92.  SARGON  THE  KING.  (PALACE  OF  SARGON.)  Fig-  93-  ASHUR-ISQA-DANIN,  HIS  TURTANU. 

(PALACE  OF  SARGON.) 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT  211 


reality  a  minor  tribe  in  both  Assyrian  and  Roman  times  and 
their  reputed  glory  was  due  only  to  their  conjectured  associa¬ 
tion  with  the  imposing  ruins  of  the  Nabataean  Hegra. 

Other  Arabs  were  of  greater  present  importance.  Samsi, 
queen  of  the  Arabs,  continued  her  tribute,  for  once  her  heads¬ 
men  presented  a  hundred  and  twenty-four  white  camels.1 
Itamra  of  Saba  must  be  one  of  the  Yathaamars  who  appear 
as  princely  mukarrib  or  as  kings  in  the  Sabaean  inscriptions  from 
southwest  Arabia.  It  goes  without  saying  that  Saba  sent  no 
tribute,  for  Assyrian  troops  were  never  within  a  thousand  miles 
of  its  capital.  If  from  equal  to  equal,  reason  for  mutual  ex¬ 
change  of  gifts  can  be  found  in  the  feeling  that  the  two  civilised 
countries  must  needs  unite  against  the  barbarous  nomads  be¬ 
tween;  in  the  desire  to  exchange  goods  directly  instead  of  by 
the  roundabout  route  through  Syria;  and  in  the  hope  that 
Saba  might  displace  her  rival  Main.  Assyria  was  in  control 
of  Gaza,  the  port  through  which  the  south  Arabian  commerce 
must  reach  the  Mediterranean;  if  the  Minseans  had  assisted 
Gaza  in  the  late  troubles,  we  can  understand  why  Assyria  took 
the  side  of  Saba. 

Six  years  after  the  settlement  of  720,  Syria  remained  quiet. 
Meanwhile,  conditions  had  completely  changed  in  Egypt,  where 
a  strong  unified  government  had  taken  the  place  of  the  Delta 
Kings.  About  the  time  that  Shalmaneser  III  was  warring  with 
the  Syrian  states,  say  about  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century, 
the  chief  followers  of  Amon  left  their  home  in  Thebes  for  the 
freedom  of  the  upper  Nile.  Around  their  capital  Napata, 
the  Biblical  Noph,2  there  grew  up  a  powerful  state  called  Ethi¬ 
opia.  Its  culture  was  purely  Egyptian,  and  its  rulers  never 
forgot  the  days  when  Amon  had  been  supreme  over  a  united 
Egypt  which  had  spread  his  worship  throughout  western  Asia. 

Piankhi  followed  his  father  Kashta  and  began  the  realisa¬ 
tion  of  these  hopes.  For  the  moment,  he  was  able  to  force 
submission  from  all  the  Egyptian  kinglets,  including  Osorkon 
III,  an  unimportant  relic  of  the  twenty-third  dynasty,  and  the 
much  more  serious  competitor,  Tefnakhte  of  Sais  in  the  delta, 
i  H.  631.  2  Isaiah  19 :  13. 


212 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


His  return  to  the  upper  Nile  permitted  Tefnakhte  to  secure 
Lower  Egypt  for  his  own,  and  his  son  Bocchoris  was  considered 
to  form  the  twenty-fourth  dynasty.  He  it  was,  perhaps,  who 
had  made  the  agreement  with  Sargon  which  the  Assyrian  ruler 
called  tribute. 

In  the  sixth  year  of  Bocchoris,  so  we  are  told,  a  lamb  spoke 
and  predicted  the  Assyrian  conquest  of  Egypt;  the  immediate 
danger  to  Bocchoris  came  not  from  the  north  but  from  the 
south.  Piankhi  had  been  followed  by  his  brother  and  son-in- 
law  Shabaka  as  king  of  Ethiopia,  and  the  new  king  quickly 
marched  north,  burned  Bocchoris  alive,  and  founded  the 
twenty-fifth  dynasty.  To  all  appearance,  Egypt  was  once  more 
her  old  self,  and  all  the  Syrian  states  promptly  began  plotting 
revolt  against  Assyria  in  reliance  on  Egyptian  support.1 

In  Judah,  the  pro-Assyrian  Ahaz  had  been  succeeded  by  the 
child  Isaiah  had  predicted  as  Emmanuel;  he  had  been  named 
Hezekiah,  “Yahweh  strengthened”  (721-693),  in  memory  of 
the  deliverance.  Since  Ahaz  had  ousted  Yahweh  from  his  an¬ 
cestral  abode,  and  had  given  precedence  to  Ashur  and  the 
Assyrian  king,  the  policy  of  Assyria  had  been  brought  home 
in  all  its  ugliness,  and  the  most  devoted  follower  could  with 
difficulty  find  argument  in  favour  of  her  treatment  of  Samaria. 

At  this  moment,  a  new  prophet  arose  to  add  repeated 
emphasis  to  the  preaching  of  Isaiah,  Micah  of  Moresheth. 
The  little  village  was  on  the  lower  slopes  of  eastern  Judah, 
not  far  from  the  Gath  which  Azariah  had  restored  to  the  He¬ 
brews.  From  the  near-by  hills,  he  could  see  the  Assyrian  ar¬ 
mies  marching  south,  and  their  presence  caused  him  to  break 
silence : 

“Hear,  all  ye  nations,  heed,  earth  and  all  your  peoples; 
Yahweh  is  witness  against  thee,  the  Lord  from  his  holy 
temple.  Behold,  Yahweh  goes  forth  from  his  place,  has  gone 
down  and  treads  on  earth’s  heights;  the  hills  melt  before  him, 
the  valleys  cleave  in  sunder. 

“This  has  come  for  the  wrongs  of  Jacob,  for  the  sins  of  the 
house  of  Judah;  the  wrong  of  Israel?  Samaria;  and  the  sin  of 

1  For  the  period,  cf.  Breasted,  Egypt,  537  ff. 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT  213 


Judah?  Jerusalem.  I  made  for  this  Samaria  a  field  mound, 
as  places  for  planting  vineyards;  her  stones  to  the  valley  poured 
down,  her  foundations  laid  open.  For  this  will  I  weep  and 
wail,  I  will  go  stripped  and  naked;  like  jackals  will  I  mourn, 
like  ostriches  make  lamentation. 

“Woe  to  those  who  devise  iniquity  on  their  beds;  in  the 
morning,  they  execute  it,  since  their  hands  have  the  power. 
Fields  they  covet  and  seize  them,  houses  too  and  they  take 
them.  They  oppress  a  man  and  a  house,  even  a  man  and  his 
heritage.  Behold,  I  devise  an  evil,  your  necks  you  may  not 
move  from  it;  neither  walk  upright,  for  it  is  a  time  of  evil. 
In  that  day  shall  they  sing  a  taunt,  over  you  they  shall  raise 
a  dirge :  ‘  The  field  of  my  people  is  measured  by  the  rod,  there 
is  none  to  restore  it;  our  captors  divide  our  fields,  we  are  un¬ 
done  completely/  1  Prophesy  not/  they  demand,  ‘such  things 
one  should  not  prophesy ;  the  reproach  of  a  talker  will  not  reach 
the  house  of  Jacob.  Is  Yahweh’s  temper  short  ?  doeth  he  thus  ? 
are  not  his  words  gracious  to  him  who  walks  uprightly?’  No, 
ye  rise  up  as  a  foe,  against  those  who  walk  in  safety;  the  robe 
ye  tear  off  from  peaceful  passers-by.  Ye  drive  my  peoples’ 
women  from  their  pleasant  houses;  ye  take  away  my  glory  from 
their  young  children  forever.  Rise  ye  and  depart,  for  this  is 
no  resting-place  for  you;  for  uncleanness  bringeth  ruin,  even  a 
grievous  destruction.  As  though  a  man  should  walk  in  wine 
and  in  falsehood  and  should  lie:  ‘I  will  prophesy  to  thee  of 
wine  and  strong  drink,’  he  would  be  prophet  for  this  peo¬ 
ple. 

“Hark,  Yahweh  cries  to  the  city,  hear,  tribe  and  city  as¬ 
sembly;  can  I  forget  the  wicked’s  house  treasures,  the  short 
measure  that  is  accursed  ?  Can  I  make  pure  her  wicked  scales, 
her  bag  of  weights  unlawful;  her  riches  full  of  violence,  her 
inhabitants  speaking  falsehood?  But  I  indeed  do  smite  thee, 
for  thy  sins  thy  house  is  ruined;  thou  shalt  eat  and  not  feel 
full,  thou  shalt  save  but  not  retain  it.  What  you  save  I  will 
give  to  the  sword,  thou  shalt  sow  but  thou  shalt  reap  not; 
thou  shalt  tread  olives  but  not  with  oil  anoint  thee,  thou  shalt 
make  sweet  wine  but  not  drink  it.  The  statutes  of  Omri  hast 


214 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


thou  followed,  all  the  works  of  the  house  of  Ahab;  that  I  may 
make  thee  a  desolation,  ye  shall  bear  the  reproach  of  the  na¬ 
tions.  ffl 

Powerful  support  for  Micah’s  preaching  was  found  in  Isaiah’s 
prediction  that  the  young  Hezekiah  must  put  his  house  in 
order,  since  he  must  die  and  not  live.  To  his  earnest  prayer, 
Isaiah  brought  back  the  promise  of  Yahweh’s  relenting,  and, 
what  was  of  equal  import,  that  Yahweh  would  deliver  king 
and  city  from  the  hand  of  the  Assyrian  monarch.  But  this 
could  be  secured  only  at  a  price,  and  a  later  generation  of  nobles 
recalled  to  remembrance  the  remarkable  manner  in  which 
Hezekiah  had  hearkened  to  the  prophet  Micah  when  he  de¬ 
clared  in  the  name  of  Yahweh  of  Hosts:  “Zion  shall  be 
ploughed  like  a  field  and  Jerusalem  shall  become  mere  heaps 
of  stones  and  the  temple  mount  as  wooded  heights.”  The  con¬ 
temporaries  of  Jeremiah  also  remembered  how  they  entreated 
Yahweh  and  how  he  repented  him  of  the  evil  he  had  pro¬ 
nounced  against  them.2 

Rejection  of  the  Assyrian  rule  was  emphasised  by  greater 
stress  laid  once  more  on  the  worship  of  Yahweh  and  the 
masseboth,  among  which  we  may  see  surely  the  figures  of 
Ashur  and  of  the  king,  were  broken  in  pieces.  The  high  places 
were  removed,  the  Asherah  cut  down,  and  the  brazen  serpent 
to  which  the  people  had  long  sacrificed  in  memory  of  a  story 
of  salvation  in  the  wilderness3  was  likewise  reduced  to  frag¬ 
ments.  The  temple,  defiled  by  the  presence  of  images  of  the 
hateful  foreigner,  was  purified,  as  was  the  great  altar  which 
had  been  deflected  from  the  service  of  Yahweh.  The  passover 
was  celebrated,  and  an  attempt  was  made  to  extend  Judaean 
influence  to  the  north  by  the  invitation  to  the  Israelites  to 
take  part  in  the  ceremonies.  Centralisation  of  the  religion, 
already  begun  by  David  and  Solomon,  was  brought  a  step 
nearer  by  the  destruction  of  shrines  outside  the  now  sacred 
city.4 


1  Cf.  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  Micah,  in  “International  Critical  Commentary.” 

, 2  Jer.  26:16ff.  3  Num.  21 :  4  ff. 

4 II  Kings  18 : 1  ff.;  II  Chron.  29  ff. 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT  215 


Other  measures  did  not  receive  such  approval  from  Isaiah. 
Merodach  Baladan,  the  new  Babylonian  king,  sent  an  embassy 
to  congratulate  Hezekiah  on  his  recovery  from  his  illness, 
and,  quite  incidentally,  to  suggest  alliance.  The  members  were 
received  most  hospitably  and  shown  all  the  resources  of  the 
kingdom.  Isaiah  was  anti-Assyrian  enough,  but  he  was  not 
pro-Babylonian.  To  his  mind,  Yahweh  was  the  all-sufficient 
source  of  strength  for  Judah,  and  alliance  with  foreign  nations 
merely  tempted  him  to  wrath.  “Hear  the  word  of  Yahweh/7 
he  exclaimed  in  answer  to  the  defiant  reply  of  Hezekiah  that 
the  ambassadors  had  seen  all  that  was  in  his  house;  “behold 
the  days  will  come  when  all  that  is  in  thy  house  and  that  which 
thy  fathers  have  laid  up  in  store  unto  this  day  shall  be  carried 
to  Babylon.  And  thy  sons  that  shall  issue  from  thee,  whom 
thou  shalt  beget,  shall  they  take  away,  and  they  shall  be 
eunuchs  in  the  palace  of  the  king  of  Babylon.77  1 

Egypt  was  as  little  approved  as  Babylonia:  “Ah,  the  land  of 
the  rustling  of  wings,  which  is  beyond  the  rivers  of  Ethiopia; 
that  sendeth  ambassadors  by  the  sea  and  in  papyrus  boats  on 
the  waters.  Go,  swift  messengers,  to  a  nation  tall  and  smooth, 
to  a  people  terrible  from  their  beginning,  a  nation  of  might 
and  of  treading  down,  whose  land  the  waters  divide.  All  ye 
inhabitants  of  the  world  and  ye  dwellers  on  the  earth,  when  a 
signal  is  lifted  on  the  mountains,  see  ye;  and  when  the  trumpet 
is  blown,  hear  ye.  I  will  be  still  and  will  look  on  from  my 
dwelling,  when-  there  is  clear  heat  in  sunshine  and  a  cloud  of 
mist  in  the  heat  of  vintage.  For  before  the  vintage,  when  the 
blossom  is  over  and  the  flower  becometh  a  ripening  grape,  he 
will  cut  off  the  branches  with  pruning-hooks  and  the  young 
shoots  he  will  cut  down.  They  shall  be  left  together  unto  the 
carrion  birds  of  the  mountains  and  to  the  beasts  of  the  earth; 
and  the  carrion  birds  shall  summer  upon  them  and  all  the  beasts 
of  the  earth  shall  winter  upon  them.77  2 

“Woe  to  the  rebellious  children,  who  carry  out  a  purpose 
which  is  not  from  me  and  strike  a  treaty,  but  not  according 
to  my  spirit,  that  they  may  add  sin  to  sin;  that  set  forth  to  go 
1 II  Kings  20;  Isaiah  39.  2  Isaiah  18. 


216 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


down  to  Egypt  and  have  not  inquired  at  my  mouth,  to  flee 
to  the  fortress  of  Pharaoh  and  take  refuge  in  the  shadow  of 
Egypt.  Therefore  shall  the  fortress  of  Pharaoh  be  your  shame, 
and  the  refuge  in  the  shadow  of  Egypt  your  confusion.  For 
though  his  princes  are  at  Zoan  and  his  ambassadors  come  to 
Hanes,  yet  shall  they  all  be  brought  to  shame  by  a  people  that 
cannot  aid  them,  that  bring  not  help  but  shame  and  disgrace. 
By  the  beasts  of  the  Negeb,  through  a  land  of  trouble  and  dis¬ 
tress,  from  whence  come  the  lioness  and  the  lion,  the  viper  and 
the  flying  dragon,  they  carry  their  riches  on  young  asses’ 
shoulders,  their  treasures  on  the  humps  of  camels,  to  a  people 
that  cannot  aid  them,  for  Egypt’s  help  is  vain  and  to  no  pur¬ 
pose.” 

This  was  unpopular  language  to  use  before  crowds  enthusi¬ 
astically  debating  the  speedy  arrival  of  an  Egyptian  army 
which  should  free  them  forever  from  the  Assyrian  yoke,  and 
it  was  strongly  resented.  The  reply  was  as  uncompromising 
as  before:  “Go,  write  it  on  a  tablet  before  them,  and  inscribe 
it  on  a  scroll,  that  it  may  be  for  the  time  to  come  a  witness 
forever.  For  it  is  a  rebellious  people,  lying  children,  children 
that  will  not  hear  the  teaching  of  Yahweh,  that  say  to  the  seers, 
‘See  not’  and  to  the  prophets,  ‘Prophesy  not  unto  us  right 
things,  speak  to  us  smooth  things,  prophesy  illusions,  leave 
the  way,  turn  aside  from  the  path,  abolish  out  of  our  sight  the 
Holy  One  of  Israel.’  This  is  why  the  Holy  One  of  Israel 
saith:  ‘Because  ye  reject  this  word  and  trust  in  wile  and 
guile,  therefore  this  guilt  shall  be  to  you  as  a  breach  ready  to 
fall,  bulging  out  in  a  high  wall,  whose  breaking  cometh  sud¬ 
denly  in  an  instant.’  And  he  shall  break  it  as  a  potter’s  vessel 
is  broken,  breaking  it  in  pieces  without  sparing;  so  that  there 
should  not  be  found  among  the  pieces  a  sherd  wherewith  to 
take  fire  from  the  hearth  or  to  dip  up  water  out  of  the  cistern. 
In  returning  and  rest  should  ye  have  been  saved,  and  in  confi¬ 
dence  should  have  been  your  strength,  but  ye  would  not. 
For  ye  said:  ‘No,  but  we  will  fly  upon  horses,’  therefore  shall 
ye  flee;  and  ‘We  will  ride  upon  the  swift,’  therefore  swift  shall 
be  they  that  pursue  thee.  A  thousand  shall  flee  at  the  shout 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT  217 


of  one  or  of  five,  till  ye  be  left  as  a  pole  on  the  top  of  the  moun¬ 
tain  and  as  a  signal  on  a  hill.”  1 

“Woe  to  them  that  go  down  to  Egypt  for  help  and  rely  on 
horses;  who  trust  in  chariots  because  they  are  many  and  in 
horsemen  because  they  are  very  strong,  but  have  not  looked 
unto  the  Holy  One  of  Israel,  and  have  not  asked  oracle  of 
Yahweh.  Yet  he  too  is  wise  and  can  bring  to  pass  evil  and 
will  not  recall  his  words  but  will  rise  against  the  house  of  evil¬ 
doers  and  against  the  helpers  of  those  who  work  iniquity. 
Now  the  Egyptians  are  men  and  not  gods,  and  their  horses 
are  not  spirit,  and  when  Yahweh  shall  stretch  out  his  hand, 
he  that  helpeth  shall  stumble  and  he  that  is  helped  shall  fall, 
and  they  shall  all  be  consumed  together.  As  the  lion  with  his 
young  cub  growleth  over  his  prey,  and  even  though  a  multi¬ 
tude  of  shepherds  be  called  forth  against  him  he  will  not  be 
dismayed  at  their  shout  nor  be  cast  down  for  their  noise,  so 
will  Yahweh  of  Hosts  come  down  to  fight  against  Mount  Zion 
and  upon  its  hill.”  2 

The  leader  in  this  pro-Egyptian  movement  was  a  certain 
Shebna  whose  Aramaean  name  and  lack  of  parentage  point  to 
his  being  a  foreigner,  while  his  position  as  chamberlain  of  the 
palace  makes  one  suspect  that  he  was  a  eunuch.  “What 
right  hast  thou”  as  a  foreigner  “to  be  here,  and  whom  hast 
thou  here”  as  fellow  kinsman  to  give  him  a  recognised  status, 
“that  thou  hewest  thee  out  a  sepulchre  on  high,  carving  a 
habitation  for  himself  in  the  rock.  Behold,  Yahweh  will  hurl 
thee,  will  hurl  thee  away,  O  man,  into  a  country  wide  extend¬ 
ing;  it  is  there  thou  shalt  die,  and  thither  shall  be  the  tomb  of 
thy  glory,  0  thou  shame  of  thy  lord’s  house !  And  I  will  thrust 
thee  from  thy  office  and  from  thy  station  shalt  thou  be  pulled 
down.  Then  shall  I  call  my  servant  Eliakim,  the  son  of  Hil- 
kiah,  and  I  will  clothe  him  with  thy  robe  and  bind  him  with 
thy  girdle  and  thy  authority  I  will  commit  to  his  hand  and  he 
shall  be  a  father  to  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  and  to  the 
house  of  Judah  and  the  key  of  the  house  of  David  will  I  lay 
on  his  back,  so  that  he  shall  open  and  none  shall  shut  and  he 
1  Isaiah  30.  2  Isaiah  31. 


218 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


shall  shut  and  none  shall  open.  And  I  will  drive  him  as  a  peg 
into  a  sure  place  and  he  shall  be  for  a  seat  of  honour  to  his 
father’s  house;  and  they  shall  hang  upon  him  all  the  honour  of 
his  father’s  house,  the  offspring  and  the  issue,  every  small 
vessel  from  the  bowls  to  the  flagons.”  1  In  part,  Isaiah’s 
prediction  was  successful,  for  Shebna,  though  not  entirely 
removed,  was  demoted  to  the  office  of  secretary,  while  Eliakim 
actually  did  become  chamberlain.2 

In  spite  of  the  treaty,  then,  Egypt  continued  to  intrigue  with 
the  enemies  of  Assyria  in  Palestine.  About  714,  alarmed  by 
the  continuous  colonisation  of  Syria,  Azuri  the  king  of  the 
Philistine  Ashdod  withheld  his  tribute  and  his  example  was 
followed  by  his  neighbours.  The  uprising  was  quickly  put 
down  and  his  brother  Ahimiti  elevated  to  the  throne.  Again 
the  anti-Assyrian  party  gained  control  and  the  place  of  Ahimiti 
was  taken  by  a  mercenary  Greek  soldier  from  Cyprus  who  is 
simply  called  by  Sargon  Iamani,  the  “Ionian.” 

This  first  appearance  of  the  Greeks  in  Assyrian  history  is 
significant  of  the  new  developments  in  Greek  lands.  The  al¬ 
most  complete  cessation  of  direct  intercourse  between  the 
Orient  and  Greece  which  marked  the  end  of  the  Mycenaean 
period  proper  was  now  past,  and  the  century  750-650  is  noted 
for  the  ever-extending  settlement  of  the  Hellenes.  The  Odys¬ 
sey  shows  us  Cretan  pirates  plundering  the  coasts  of  Egypt, 
until  the  king  was  forced  to  come  out  in  person,  one  of  the 
Delta  Kings  who  divided  the  sovereignty  of  Egypt.3  Within 
the  half-century,  there  were  to  be  purely  Greek  settlements  in 
Egypt  itself.  Farther  north  Greeks  were  settling  in  Cyprus 
and  on  the  mainland  of  Cilicia.  It  was  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  that  in  this  great  outpouring  of  the  Greek  peoples, 
a  Greek  pirate  should  turn  up  in  Ashdod,  and,  in  virtue  of  his 
superior  armour  and  military  training,  should  assume  charge 
of  affairs. 

Ascalon  remained  quiet  under  Rukibti,  but  the  revolt 
spread  to  Gath  and  then  to  Judah,  Moab,  and  Ammon. 
Judah  was  by  no  means  a  unit  in  entering  the  new  combina- 
1  Isaiah  22 :  15  ff.  2  Isaiah  36:3.  3  Odys.,  XIV,  257  ff. 


SARGON  AND  THE  SYRIAN  SETTLEMENT  219 


tion,  for  Isaiah  protested  strongly.  He  loosed  the  sack¬ 
cloth  from  his  loins  and  the  sandals  from  his  feet  and  delivered 
this  oracle:  “Like  as  my  servant  Isaiah  has  walked  naked  and 
barefoot  for  three  years,  a  sign  and  an  omen  against  Egypt 
and  Ethiopia,  so  shall  the  king  of  Assyria  lead  away  the  cap¬ 
tives  of  Egypt  and  the  exiles  of  Ethiopia,  young  and  old, 
naked  and  barefoot,  to  the  shame  of  Egypt.  And  they  shall 
be  dismayed  and  confounded,  because  of  Ethiopia  their  expec¬ 
tation  and  of  Egypt  their  boasting.”  1 

How  dangerous  this  outbreak  was  considered  is  shown  by 
the  haste  with  which  Sargon  acted.  Although  it  was  too  early 
for  the  feudal  levy  to  be  called  out,  he  hurried  off  his  turtanu 
Ashur-isqa-danin  with  but  four  hundred  and  twenty  of  his 
own  body-guard.  The  Assyrians  suddenly  appeared  and  in¬ 
vested  Azekah,  high  upon  its  isolated  hill  with  a  far  view  to 
the  west  and  fortified  with  the  great  walls  which  recent  exca¬ 
vation  has  laid  bare.2  The  Ionian  had  surrounded  low-lying 
Ashdod  with  a  trench  and  secured  a  water-supply  from  the 
outside;  the  capture  of  Azekah  made  him  lose  heart,  and  he 
fled  to  Egypt,  whence  he  was  extradited  and  handed  over  to 
Sargon. 

Ekron  appears  on  a  low  hill  near  the  water;  its  archer  de¬ 
fenders  wear  a  single  long  robe  and  helmets  with  neck-pieces. 
An  apparent  negro  makes  more  probable  its  location  on  the 
border  of  Egypt.  The  Baal  of  Gezer,  a  little  north,  is  larger, 
and  its  acropolis  is  on  a  high  isolated  rock  in  the  rear.  Two 
rams  are  driven  up  a  made  road,  under  the  supervision  of  a 
eunuch  general.  The  captives,  both  men  and  women,  wear  a 
fringed  blanket  which  covers  the  head  and  falls  down  over  the 
left  shoulder.  One  woman  carries  a  small  skin  in  her  hand, 
the  other  has  a  child  sitting  on  her  shoulder.  The  chief  is 
brought  by  the  eunuch  before  the  king  seated  in  his  chariot, 
another  seizes  the  unfortunate  by  the  throat  and  draws  the 
sword  to  slay  him.  Several  other  towns  on  hills  are  taken  by 
escalade.  Another  relief  shows  the  booted,  short-bearded 

1  20 

2  Joshua  10: 10;  I  Sam.  17:1;  II  Chron.  11:9;  Jer.  34:7;  Neh.  11:30. 


220 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


men,  with  shaved  heads,  abbreviated  dress  and  sleeves,  short 
curved  swords  and  pointed  oval  shields,  fighting  a  charioteer. 
One  is  under,  one  above,  the  horses,  a  third  turns  to  flee,  two 
others  still  await  the  approach  of  the  enemy. 

Too  important  to  remain  long  desolate,  the  captured  towns 
were  rebuilt  and  settled  with  loyal  colonists.  A  certain  Mitinti 
was  intrusted  with  their  rule.  Sargon  now  held  the  cities  of 
the  Philistine  plain  and  controlled  the  main  routes,  he  could 
afford  to  permit  a  precarious  liberty  to  the  mountaineers  of 
Judah,  Moab,  and  Ammon.  The  sudden  punishment  of  the 
Ionian  much  impressed  the  Syrian  imagination ;  Syria  remained 
quiet,  and  contributed  nothing  to  the  history  for  the  next  dozen 
years. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


RUSASH  OF  HALDIA  AND  “GOLDEN”  MIDAS 

Reaching  in  a  great  arc  from  northeast  to  northwest  were 
the  provinces  and  appanages  of  the  Haldian  empire.  No 
longer  the  most  powerful  in  western  Asia,  the  reign  of  Shal¬ 
maneser  had  allowed  new  growth.  Although  the  son  of  Sar- 
durish,  its  present  ruler  Rusash  boasted  on  the  equestrian 
group  he  had  dedicated  in  one  of  his  provincial  capitals:  “  With 
my  two  chariot  horses  and  my  charioteer  alone  my  hands  con¬ 
quered  the  kingdom  of  LTrartu.”  The  older  Menuahina, 
founded  by  Menuash,  had  been  completely  destroyed;  Rusash 
restored  it,  but  farther  north,  and  called  it  Rusahina  after  him¬ 
self.  Since  the  waters  of  Lake  Van  are  not  potable,  he  con¬ 
structed  to  the  east  among  the  barren  and  desert  wastes  an 
immense  reservoir,  and  a  canal  which,  under  the  name  “  Stream 
of  Semiramis,”  still  carries  the  water  to  Van.  The  next  step 
was  to  build  temples  to  Teishbash,  the  storm-god. 

Building  interests  could  not  for  long  exhaust  the  energy  of 
so  live  a  monarch.  To  the  north  of  Lake  Gokcha,  an  inscrip¬ 
tion  told  of  the  twenty-four  countries,  lost  since  the  days  of 
Argishtish  I,  whose  inhabitants  had  been  deported  to  Haldia. 
The  southeast,  as  far  as  Musasir,  was  in  his  hands,  but  on  the 
southwest  his  frontier  no  longer  touched  the  Euphrates.  Hal¬ 
dian  influence  was  not  confined  to  the  territory  ruled  directly 
by  Rusash;  with  Merodach  Baladan,  to  whom  he  may  have 
been  allied,  he  was  the  cause  of  almost  every  war  of  the  reign. 

Great  changes  had  occurred  in  eastern  Asia  Minor  since 
Tiglath  Pileser  had  sent  his  armies  into  its  recesses.  A  new 
power  had  arisen  which,  if  a  potential  rival  to  Haldia,  for 
the  time  being  might  prove  a  valued  ally  against  Assyria. 
The  Assyrians  spoke  of  Mita  the  Mushkian,  but  we  know  him 

221 


222 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


as  Midas  the  Phrygian,  the  golden  Midas  of  Greek  legend 
whose  touch  transformed  all  to  the  precious  metal. 

About  the  time  the  Hittite  empire  was  falling  to  pieces,  say 
in  the  twelfth  or  eleventh  century  before  Christ,  there  was  a 
people  in  Thrace  called  the  Bryges  who  spoke  an  Indo-European 
language,  employed  the  Aryan  political  institutions,  and  adored 
a  paternal  nature-god,  Men,  the  moon.  Other  tribes  of  simi¬ 
lar  character  were  forcing  them  onward,  until  they  crossed  the 
narrow  straits  into  Asia,  following  the  example  of  their  kins¬ 
men,  the  defenders  of  Troy  against  the  Homeric  Greeks.  In 
west  central  Asia  Minor  they  found  a  land  which  seemed  to 
them  homelike.  On  one  side  were  low  plains,  blazing  hot 
in  summer,  flooded  with  water  in  spring,  fertile  but  always 
unhealthy;  on  the  other  elevated  treeless  prairies  with  fierce 
sun  in  summer  and  windswept  in  winter.  Between  were  pine- 
clad  hills,  running  water,  fertile  valleys,  and  a  bracing  climate. 

Little  of  their  history  has  survived  through  the  mist  of  Greek 
legend.  The  fierce  Indo-European  nomads  settled  down,  until 
later  writers  could  declare  that  the  Phrygian  life  was  primarily 
agricultural.  As  such,  they  came  to  adore  the  earth  mother 
and  her  lover-son  in  all  their  manifestations,  of  which  Cybele 
and  Atthis  were  the  chief.  The  material  culture  of  the  na¬ 
tives  was  likewise  taken  over,  but  so  profoundly  was  it  influ¬ 
enced  by  their  racial  genius  that  whether  we  look  at  their  tomb 
fagades,  cut  from  the  living  rock,  or  at  their  humblest  sherds  of 
pottery,  we  see  the  same  geometric  patterns  which  connect 
them  with  the  later  prehistoric  civilisation  of  central  Eu¬ 
rope. 

We  know  still  less  of  their  political  history.  Legend  merely 
states  that  their  first  king  was  a  Gordius,  from  whom  the  first 
capital  took  its  name,  and  that  his  son  was  the  famous  Midas. 
We  are  likewise  told  that  the  names  of  Gordius  and  Midas  al¬ 
ternated  in  the  royal  line,  but  which  Midas  was  the  Mita  of 
the  Assyrians  is  quite  uncertain.  The  occurrence  of  typically 
Phrygian  names  of  places  in  distant  parts  of  the  peninsula 
has  rightly  been  taken  to  indicate  the  extent  of  the  Phrygian 
power.  By  the  end  of  the  eighth  century  they  were  firmly 


■n 


Fig.  94.  COMANA,  HO]\IE  OF  THE  CAPPADOCIAN  MOTHER  GODDESS. 


Fig.  95.  TOMB  OF  MIDAS  AT  THE  MIDAS  CITY  IN  PHRYGIA. 


RUSASH  OF  HALDIA  AND  “GOLDEN”  MIDAS  223 


fixed  in  Cappadocia,  and  so  thoroughly  had  Midas  come  to  be 
identified  with  Asia  Minor  that  the  Assyrian  scribes  revived 
for  him  the  title  of  Mushkian,  unknown  since  Tiglath  Pileser  I 
and  Ashur-nasir-apal  II  had  fought  these  redoubtable  tribes¬ 
men. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  questioned  that  this  was  the  Midas  who 
moved  the  capital  from  Gordium,  a  miserable  little  village  of 
rude  houses  in  an  open  valley,1  to  the  heart  of  the  pine-clad 
hills.  On  a  high  flat-topped  rock,  commanding  the  main 
passage  through  the  hills,  he  established  the  settlement  which 
we  still  call  the  Midas  City  because  on  one  of  its  supporting 
cliffs  is  a  magnificent  tomb  fagade,  one  of  the  finest  examples 
in  the  geometric  style,  whose  Phrygian  inscription  contains 
the  name  of  King  Midas.  Of  the  city  within  the  two-mile 
circuit  of  walls,  we  have  only  a  double  throne  of  the  gods  with 
Phrygian  inscription,  an  altar  at  the  gate  where  the  wheel- 
tracks  can  still  be  traced,  the  scarped  rocks  where  once  the 
walls  were  set.  A  city  with  half  the  circuit  of  Sargon’s  new 
capital  was  the  centre  of  no  small  empire. 

The  weakness  of  Haldia  and  the  short  and  ineffective  reign 
of  Shalmaneser  presented  opportunity  which  Midas  was  not 
slow  to  seize.  The  little  state  of  Shinuhtu,  just  north  of  the 
Gates,  was  led  to  revolt ;  by  order  of  Sargon  it  was  annexed  to 
Tyana,  whose  king  Matti  had  already  paid  Assyrian  tribute. 
Much  more  serious  was  the  revolt  of  Carchemish. 

Long  since  the  northern  barbarians  had  succumbed  to  the 
lure  of  Hittite  civilisation  and  to  the  advantages  of  the  site. 
Their  language  was  written  in  the  older  pictographs,  their  art 
can  scarcely  be  distinguished  from  that  of  the  Hittite  capital. 
Particularly  in  architecture  was  the  earlier  influence  to  be 
noted.  The  same  use  of  mud  brick  for  the  main  walls,  the 
same  dado  of  sculptured  slabs,  the  same  battlements  decorated 
with  rosettes,  the  same  employment  of  enamelled  brick,  all 
testified  to  the  conquest  of  the  Hittite  culture.  As  for  their 
sculptures,  only  a  close  scrutiny  reveals  any  marked  difference 
from  those  found  at  Hatte,  and  the  similarity  is  virtually  com- 

1  Korte,  G or dion. 


224 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


plete  with  the  contemporary  states  of  north  Syria  and  Asia 
Minor  which  carried  on  the  traditions  of  Hittite  technic. 

Warlike  character  had  disappeared  before  the  opportunities 
of  money-making  presented  by  its  position  on  the  Euphrates 
crossing.  Mercantile  in  its  interests  and  careless  of  politics,  it 
had  been  spared  incorporation,  and  in  the  period  of  Assyrian 
decline  it  had  gone  its  own  way.  So  it  resented  its  loss  of 
freedom  to  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  and  although  Pisiris  had  paid 
his  tribute  meekly  enough  in  740,  when  Midas  urged  him  to 
throw  off  the  yoke,  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  compromise 
himself.  To  those  who  have  considered  Midas  almost  a 
Greek,  there  is  something  incongruous  in  the  thought  of  his 
stirring  up  revolt  on  the  far-distant  Euphrates;  when  we  re¬ 
member  that  four  centuries  previous,  northerners  had  occupied 
Carchemish,  we  begin  to  suspect  that  it  was  some  belated 
memory  of  common  origins  which  might  have  led  to  the  al¬ 
liance. 

Midas  a  second  time  failed  to  afford  adequate  support,  and 
Rusash  proved  no  more  dependable.  Carchemish  was  made 
a  province,  and  the  Assyrians  held  the  great  western  road. 
Like  other  mercantile  cities,  Carchemish  had  her  mercenary 
troops;  taken  over  in  a  body,  they  swelled  the  ranks  of  the 
new  standing  army.  The  sack  of  so  great  a  city,  perhaps  the 
greatest  trading  centre  of  its  time,  produced  enormous  booty, 
eleven  talents  of  gold,  twenty-one  hundred  in  silver,  bronze, 
ivory,  and  elephant  hides. 

Carchemish  was  the  greatest  Hittite  centre  surviving,  but 
its  Hittite  character,  never  strong,  had  been  much  diluted  by 
Aramaean  infusion.  Sargon  rebuilt  it,  and  the  relative  rank  of 
its  eponyms  under  his  successors  shows  its  recognition  as  one 
of  the  greatest  cities.  Some  of  the  sculptures  executed  under 
Assyrian  influence,  the  exquisite  relief  of  the  mother  goddess, 
for  example,  have  a  delicacy  and  a  sureness  which  is  absent  in 
the  purely  native  work.  Its  commercial  influence  likewise 
continued;  throughout  the  later  empire,  no  small  number  of 
commercial  documents  were  reckoned  by  the  “mina  of  Car¬ 
chemish,”  our  actual  pound. 


Fig.  96.  HITTITE  KING  BEFORE 
HIS  GOD.  (IVRIZ.) 

The  god,  clad  in  the  native  costume,  holds 
grapes  and  the  barley  stalk;  the  king  is 
in  Assyrian  dress. 


Fig.  97.  SACRIFICE  TO  THE  GOD  TESHUB.  (MELIDIA.) 

The  weather  god  stands  on  his  bull,  whose  bellow  is  the  thunder,  the  thunderbolt 
Is  in  his  hand.  The  priest-king  pours  a  libation  of  wine,  the  boy  brings  the 

goat  for  sacrifice. 


RUSASH  OF  HALDIA  AND  “GOLDEN”  MIDAS  225 


Forward  movement  from  the  Tarsus  base  next  attempted 
Iconium,  an  age-old  city  where  the  fabled  Nannacus  had  ruled 
before  the  flood,  and  at  this  moment,  as  its  mound  proclaims, 
at  the  height  of  its  prosperity.  Midas  and  Rusash  fought  a 
battle  on  the  coast,  where  mountains  and  sea  came  together, 
and  certain  towns  long  held  by  the  Phrygian  were  detached 
by  the  Assyrians,  but  Iconium  was  still  free.  The  Ionian 
Greeks,  who  had  long  troubled  the  seacoast,  were  driven  back. 

The  great  trade  route  from  Tarsus  through  the  Gates  to 
Hatte  and  to  Sinope  on  the  Black  Sea  was  commanded  by 
Tyana,  already  a  religious  centre.  Matti  had  come  to  recog¬ 
nise  the  real  meaning  of  Assyrian  policy,  and  made  terms  with 
Midas,  who  left  behind  one  of  his  Phrygian  inscriptions.1 
Matti  was  deposed,  and  the  Assyrians  moved  on  to  Tabal, 
where  the  Hulli  of  Tiglath  Pileser’s  time  had  been  followed  by 
his  son  Ambaris.  Sargon  married  him  to  his  daughter  Ahat- 
abisha,  whose  steward  kept  the  Assyrian  court  informed  as  to 
what  was  going  on.  As  dowry,  Ambaris  was  assigned  Hilaku, 
the  temporary  halt  of  the  Cilicians  on  their  way  from  the  Troad, 
where  they  had  furnished  Andromache  to  the  Homeric  epic.2 
Midas  and  Rusash  proved  the  usual  broken  reeds  to  Ambaris, 
and  Tabal  for  a  few  short  years  was  an  Assyrian  province. 

His  example  had  been  followed  by  Tarhunazi,  ruler  of  Kam- 
manu,  or  Comana,  but  the  Assyrians  drove  him  from  Melidia 
to  the  isolated  rock  of  Til  Garimmu,  the  Togarmah  where  the 
Hebrew  prophet  looked  for  horses  and  mules,3  and  carried  him 
off  to  Ashur.  By  the  fortification  of  the  towns  in  the  Anti- 
Taurus,  a  wedge  was  thrust  forward  between  Haldia  and 
Phrygia.  One  year  later,  the  Assyrian  territory  was  rounded 
off  in  north  Syria  by  the  acquisition  of  Marqasi  and  Gurgum, 
where  Tarhulara  had  been  murdered  by  his  son  Mutallu. 
Que  was  pacified  in  711-709,  and  the  two  practicable  passes 
over  the  Taurus  were  closed  to  Midas.  “Tribute”  was  re¬ 
ceived  from  Midas,  which  presumably  marks  a  treaty,  and  the 
war  in  the  west  came  to  a  full  stop. 

1  Myres,  Liverpool  Annals,  I,  pi.  XIII.  2 II.,  6  :  395;  415. 

3  Ezek.  27  :  14;  38  : 6;  cf.  Gen.  10  : 3;  I  Chron.  1  : 6. 


226 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Well  to  the  north  of  where  we  last  found  it,  Qummuh  aban¬ 
doned  friendly  relations  with  Sargon  and  went  over  to  Argish- 
tish,  the  recent  successor  of  Rusash  in  Haldia.  Mutallu  re¬ 
tired  to  the  wild  mountains  and  was  safe,  but  his  men  were 
deported  to  the  swamps  of  the  south  and  inhabitants  from  Bit 
Iakin  were  settled  in  their  place.  The  country  was  famous  for 
its  weaves,  and  shortly  after  Sennacherib  reports  to  his  father 
that  the  Qummuh  chiefs  had  arrived  with  their  tribute  and 
seven  female  mules.  They  were  assigned  to  the  “  house  of  the 
Qummuh  land’7  but  fed  at  their  own  expense.  They  desired 
to  bring  their  tribute  in  person  to  Sargon,  but  Sennacherib 
was  of  the  opinion  that  it  was  unnecessary  to  go  to  Babylon, 
they  should  be  received  by  him  in  Kalhu.  Let  them  bring 
quickly  their  cloth  and  fruit.  The  official  brokers  of  the  royal 
palace  claim  they  have  received  but  seven  talents  from  that 
region,  and  that  the  men  of  Qummuh  are  not  satisfied,  declaring 
that  their  produce  has  been  scanty  and  that  they  should  bring 
the  royal  weavers.1 

Ionians  had  already  been  making  trouble  in  Que;  perhaps 
this  is  the  time  when  Soli  was  founded  by  Argives  and  Rhodians. 
Cyprus  was  largely  theirs.  As  enemies  of  the  Phoenicians,  who 
had  colonised  Cyprus  before  them,  they  were  inclined  to  be 
friendly  with  the  Assyrians,  who  were  also  hostile  to  Midas, 
who,  in  turn,  was  none  too  kindly  disposed  to  the  Greeks  on  his 
western  borders.  The  Assyrians  had  no  fleet,  and  friendship 
with  the  great  empire  would  mean  commercial  privileges 
throughout  the  whole  of  its  provinces. 

We  can  therefore  understand  why,  while  Sargon  was  in 
Babylon,  he  received  an  embassy  and  gifts  from  the  seven 
kings  of  the  land  of  la,  a  region  of  Iatnana,  as  the  Assyrians 
named  Cyprus,  which  lay  seven  days  distance  in  the  midst  of 
the  sea.  In  return  for  their  gifts  of  gold  and  silver,  ebony  and 
box,  he  sent  an  “ image  of  his  majesty/’  which  the  Greeks  pre¬ 
served  so  carefully  that  it  has  endured  to  the  present.  It  was 
set  up  in  Citium,  as  the  Greeks  named  the  Cypriote  Carthage 
which  in  the  reign  of  Tiglath  Pileser  was  still  dedicating  its 

1  H.  196. 


Fig.  98.  THE  LEVEL  LINE  OF  THE  TAURUS  FROM  THE  NORTH. 


Fig.  99.  A  VILLAGE  IN  A  NOOK  OF  THE  TAURUS 
Ivriz  with  its  Hittite  inscriptions  and  reliefs, 


RUSASH  OF  HALDIA  AND  “GOLDEN”  MIDAS  227 


first-fruits  of  the  bronze  to  the  Baal  of  Lebanon;  in  the  mean¬ 
time  the  Greeks  had  deprived  the  Phoenicians  of  its  possession. 
Thenceforth  the  Greeks  of  Cyprus  continued  to  keep  up 
friendly  relations  with  the  Assyrians,  and  once  in  a  while  they 
sent  presents;  to  the  end  they  preserved  their  independence 
untouched.  One  result  of  the  connection  there  may  be; 
later  chronologers  transferred  the  rule  of  the  sea  from  the 
Phrygians  to  the  Cypriote  Greeks  about  the  date  of  Sargon’s 
death. 

More  than  once,  in  our  study  of  the  problems  of  the  north¬ 
west  boundary,  we  have  felt  the  sinister  influence  of  the  Hal- 
dian  Rusash.  Still  more  serious  were  the  results  he  produced 
in  the  north  and  east.  When  in  719  Sargon  turned  his  atten¬ 
tion  to  this  sector,  he  found  his  best  base  the  large  and  influ¬ 
ential  tribe  of  the  Mannai  who  lived  around  the  southern  part 
of  Lake  Urumia.  As  next-door  neighbours  of  Haldia,  from 
whom  they  had  suffered  much,  they  naturally  threw  in  their 
lot  with  Assyria.  To  their  south  lay  Zikirtu,  whose  chief, 
Metatti,  just  as  naturally  allied  himself  to  the  Haldians. 

Trouble  began  when  Metatti  persuaded  two  of  the  Mannai 
towns  to  revolt  against  their  lord  Iranzu.  Iranzu  appealed 
to  Sargon,  and  the  invaders  were  driven  out.  Aza,  son  of 
Iranzu,  was  also  a  “lover  of  the  yoke  of  the  god  Ashur.” 
Ashur’s  yoke  was  anything  but  light,  and  Rusash  persuaded 
the  commons  to  strike  for  liberty  and  less  taxes.  Aza  was 
slain  by  Metatti  and  Bagdatti  of  Uishd^sh,  and  his  dead  bod}^ 
was  exposed  on  Mount  Uaush;  Bagdatti  reigned  but  a  moment, 
for  the  Assyrians  returned,  flayed  him  alive,  and  exposed 
his  bleeding  corpse  on  this  same  Mount  Uaush.  Ullusunu, 
Aza’s  brother,  soon  realised  that  Rusash  was  the  nearer  and 
more  dangerous  foe,  and  his  example  was  followed  by  Ashur-liu 
of  Karalla  and  Itti  of  Allabria. 

A  hasty  expedition  in  716  brought  Ullusunu  to  his  senses, 
and  he  was  reinstated.  Not  so  easily  did  the  two  who  had 
followed  his  leadership  win  off.  Bound  hand  and  foot,  they 
were  carried  to  the  king.  Rings  were  inserted  in  their  lips, 
and  the  monarch  grasped  the  cord;  even  as  one  was  on  his 


228 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


knees  imploring  mercy,  he  was  blinded  with  the  spear-point. 
Ashur-liu  was  flayed  alive,  while  his  men  were  deported  to 
Hamath,  where  they  were  soon  joined  by  Itti  and  his 
family. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


PURPLE  PATCHES  OF  A  HISTORIAN 

Best  known  in  all  Assyrian  history  is  the  campaign  of  714. 
At  its  conclusion,  the  great  scribe  of  the  king,  Nabu-shallim- 
shunu,  son  of  Harmakki,  the  royal  scribe,  sent  in  the  name  of 
Sargon  to  the  capital  of  Ashur,  to  all  the  great  gods  who  dwelt 
therein,  to  its  palaces  and  its  citizens,  a  huge  tablet,  whose 
wealth  of  rhetoric  and  of  detail  puts  it  in  a  class  by  itself. 
Thanks  to  this  official  “news  from  the  front/’  we  may  envis¬ 
age  the  campaign  in  all  its  details.1 

In  the  month  of  July,  Urta  wrote  on  an  ancient  tablet  that 
the  time  was  propitious  for  the  assembling  of  an  army  and  for 
the  formation  of  a  camp.  The  troops  set  forth  from  Kalhu 
and  crossed  the  Upper  Zab  at  its  flood.  On  the  third  day, 
there  were  ceremonies  in  honour  of  Enlil  and  Ninlil,  and  the 
Assyrians  leaped  across  the  Lower  Zab  as  if  it  had  been  a  ditch. 
The  passes  of  Mount  Kullar  of  Lulume  brought  them  to  Sumbi, 
where  a  grand  review  was  held  and  the  numbers  computed  of 
the  charioteers,  cavalry,  archers,  spearmen,  pioneers,  the 
camels  and  asses  of  the  convoy. 

The  yoke  of  the  chariot  of  Nergal  and  Adad,  the  divine  stand¬ 
ards  which  marched  before  the  army,  was  directed  towards 
Zikirtu  and  Andia.  Into  the  midst  of  the  mountains  they  ad¬ 
vanced,  between  high  summits  which  were  clothed  with  all 
sorts  of  woods,  whose  interior  was  chaos  and  frightful  their 
passes,  where  the  shadows  extend  over  the  country  like  a  for¬ 
est  of  cedars  and  the  wayfarer  sees  not  the  splendour  of  the  sun. 
Twenty-six  times  they  crossed  the  Buia  in  its  wanderings. 

They  then  faced  Mount  Simiria,  a  great  mountain  peak, 
which  stands  like  the  point  of  a  lance,  and  uplifts  its  head  from 

1  Thureau-Dangin,  Relation  de  la  Huitihme  Campagne  de  Sargon,  1912; 
Schroeder,  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Assur,  II,  141. 

229 


230 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  mountain  home  of  the  mistress  of  the  gods,  which  upholds 
the  heavens  on  its  summit,  while  below  its  roots  reach  to  Arallu, 
the  abode  of  the  dead.  From  side  to  side  there  was  no  passage, 
like  the  back  of  a  fish  its  ascent  was  difficult,  on  its  sides  ex¬ 
tended  down  caves  and  precipices,  and  when  the  eye  looked 


Fig.  100.  SARGON’S  CAMP. 


upon  it  fear  was  evoked.  The  very  body-guard  could  not  trav¬ 
erse  its  difficult  paths,  so  with  mighty  axes  of  bronze  the  men 
of  pain,  the  pioneers,  were  loaded,  and  they  broke  the  rock  of 
the  mountain  like  cut  stone.  Thus  the  road  was  opened  and 
the  body-guard  flew  up  like  eagles,  the  camels  and  asses  as¬ 
cended  like  the  wild  ibex,  the  offspring  of  the  mountain. 

Camp  was  pitched  on  the  summit,  seven  thousand  feet  high. 
The  reliefs  label  the  “camp  of  Sargon,”  no  longer  round  as  in 
the  old  days,  but  oval,  and  with  the  royal  tent,  the  standards, 
the  altar,  the  huts  of  the  cooks,  the  two  scribes  we  have  learned 


PURPLE  PATCHES  OF  A  HISTORIAN 


231 


to  expect.  Seven  long-extending  mountains,  covered  with  ver¬ 
dure  whose  scent  was  good,  were  climbed,  and  the  rivers  which 
ran  down  their  sides  must  be  crossed  in  flood  before  the  army 
might  descend  into  the  Mannai  provinces. 

With  rejoicing  of  heart  and  gladness  of  countenance,  because 
Sargon  had  not  ceased  yearly  from  avenging  him,  Ullusunu 
met  Sargon  at  a  frontier  fortress.  Soon  after  he  received  the 
dues  of  Bel-apal-iddina,  who  two  years  before  had  been  made 
prince  of  Allabria.  The  village  chiefs  of  Namri,  Sangibutu, 
Abdadani,  and  the  mighty  Medes  heard  of  the  approach  of  his 
army,  the  devastation  of  their  land  in  the  former  year  remained 
in  their  memory,  stupefaction  was  poured  out  upon  them. 
Dalta  of  Elli  and  a  long  list  of  Median  chieftains  whose  strongly 
Iranian  names  prove  the  Mazdian  worship  brought  their  gifts 
to  Parsua,  fast  horses  of  open  knees,  raging  mules,  the  camels 
peculiar  to  their  land. 

Ullusunu  had  gone  on  to  Sirdakka,  waiting  in  perfectness  of 
heart  to  perform  a  vassal’s  duty.  As  though  an  Assyrian 
governor,  he  had  heaped  up  granaries  with  food  and  wine 
against  the  coming  of  his  master,  he  had  sent  his  eldest  son 
with  tribute  and  the  greeting  gift,  without  delaying  for  orders 
he  had  set  up  a  stele.  He  and  his  nobles  crawled  on  all  fours 
like  dogs  into  the  royal  presence  and  besought  Sargon  to  avenge 
the  Mannai  on  the  Haldian,  to  restrain  the  Kakme,  most  evil 
of  men,  from  entering  the  midst  of  their  land,  and  to  restore 
the  ruined  Mannai  to  their  places.  The  words  of  supplica¬ 
tion  were  heard  and  Sargon  replied:  “It  is  enough.”  Restora¬ 
tion  and  victory  were  promised  them  and  they  took  confidence. 
A  magnificent  banquet  was  spread  for  Ullusunu — the  author 
does  not  add  that  it  was  prepared  from  Ullusunu’s  stores — and 
more  than  in  the  case  of  his  father  Iranzu  was  his  throne  ele¬ 
vated.  The  Mannai  sat  with  the  men  of  Assyria  at  a  common 
table  of  joy,  and  before  Ashur  and  the  men  of  their  own  land 
they  blessed  the  royal  rule. 

Village  chiefs  of  Gizilbundu,  situate  in  the  isolated  moun¬ 
tains,  a  distant  place,  closed  like  a  bridge,  whose  citizens  trusted 
in  their  own  strength  and  recognised  not  the  Assyrian  sover- 


232 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


eignty,  none  of  the  Assyrian  kings  had  before  seen  their  abode, 
received  their  gifts,  or  so  much  as  heard  their  name,  prayed  for 
a  safe  life  and  that  their  walls  should  not  be  destroyed,  and 
abjectly  kissed  his  feet.  For  the  good  of  their  land — the 
phrase  is  quite  modern  enough  to  recall  the  notorious  “  White 
Man’s  Burden” — a  resident  was  intrusted  with  their  care, 
though  general  supervision  was  to  be  exercised  by  the  governor 
of  Parsua. 

A  march  of  thirty  hours  along  the  frontier  between  Mannai 
and  Media  brought  the  army  to  Panzish,  where  Ullusunu  had 
erected  a  fort  to  restrain  the  feet  of  the  hostile  Zikirtu  and 
Andia  from  entering  and  to  prevent  the  escape  of  fugitives. 
In  full  sympathy  with  this  undertaking,  Sargon  strengthened 
its  casing  and  ordered  oil,  wine,  and  weapons  of  war  to  be 
accumulated  within. 

Metatti  of  Zikirtu  had  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  his  lord  Ul¬ 
lusunu,  had  forgotten  his  service,  and  had  trusted  to  Rusash, 
who,  like  himself,  knew  no  prudence  and  was  a  helper  who  could 
not  protect  his  life.  When  Metatti  saw  the  Assyrians,  his 
double-walled  city  of  Parda  with  its  hill  and  river  defences 
had  no  value  in  his  eyes.  A  ram  was  run  up  the  steep  road, 
another  passed  over  a  made  causeway,  the  archers,  spearmen, 
and  sappers  advanced  to  the  attack.  The  men  of  his  land  in 
their  sheepskin  dress  ascended  the  difficult  mountain  whose 
exaggerated  steepness  is  pictured  in  the  relief,  With  para¬ 
lysed  limbs  they  saw  from  afar  three  strong  cities  and  eighty- 
four  hamlets  destroyed  as  if  by  the  waters  of  the  primeval 
flood.  His  hill  guards  were  slain,  but  of  Metatti  himself 
Sargon  could  only  report  that  his  place  of  abode  was  not  found. 

With  Uishdish  was  reached  that  part  of  the  Mannai  land 
which  had  been  ravaged  by  Rusash  the  mountaineer,  the  seed 
of  murder,  who  knows  not  prudence,  whose  lips  speak  words  of 
strife  and  injustice,  who  guards  not  the  weighty  words  of 
Shamash,  and  yearly,  without  ceasing,  rejected  his  statutes. 
Not  content  with  his  former  sins,  he  had  added  the  greatest 
of  crimes,  meriting  the  ruin  of  his  land  and  the  defeat  of  his 
men,  for  he  had  summoned  his  troops  and  had  dared  to  meet 


PURPLE  PATCHES  OF  A  HISTORIAN 


233 


the  Assyrians  face  to  face.  The  conflict  began  in  Mount 
Uaush,  the  same  which  had  seen  the  bodies  of  former  Mannai 
rulers  exposed,  a  mighty  mountain,  which  like  the  form  of  a 
cloud  in  the  midst  of  heaven  lifts  up  its  head,  where,  from  dis¬ 
tant  days,  no  one  had  passed  its  place  and  no  one  had  seen  its 
road,  and  the  winged  bird  of  heaven  on  high  had  not  gone,  with 
great  storms  and  the  strength  of  cold,  upon  which  the  snow  is 
heaped  day  and  night.  News  was  brought  by  messenger 
that  the  Haldian  army  was  drawn  up  in  the  depths  of  the 
mountain,  and  Sargon  changed  his  course  to  the  Haldian 
frontier. 

“The  unhappy  troops  of  Ashur,  who  had  marched  by  a  dis¬ 
tant  route,  were  moaning  and  exhausted.  They  had  traversed 
many  mighty  mountains,  whose  ascent  and  descent  were  diffi¬ 
cult,  and  they  had  changed  their  appearance.  Their  fatigue 
I  did  not  soothe,  water  for  their  thirst  I  did  not  pour  out.  I 
did  not  set  up  my  camp,  I  did  not  fortify  the  wall  of  my  camp. 
I  did  not  send  my  warriors  forth,  I  did  not  collect  my  army, 
those  who  were  at  my  right  or  my  left  did  not  return  to  my 
side,  I  did  not  look  back,  I  did  not  use  the  greater  part  of  my 
troops,  I  did  not  raise  my  eyes.  With  my  own  chariot  alone 
and  with  the  cavalry  who  march  at  my  side,  who  never  leave 
my  side  in  a  hostile  and  unfriendly  land,  the  troop  and  squadron 
of  Sin-ahi-usur,  like  a  mighty  javelin  I  fell  upon  Rusash,  his 
destruction  I  accomplished,  I  routed  him.  The  bodies  of 
his  warriors  like  malt  I  brewed.  His  warriors  who  bore  the 
bow  and  the  lance  before  his  feet,  the  confidence  of  his  army, 

I  slaughtered.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  royal  seed, 
his  governors,  his  officials,  and  his  cavalry  in  my  hands  I 
took  and  I  broke  his  battle-line.  I  shut  him  up  prisoner  in 
his  camp,  and  his  horses,  trained  to  the  yoke,  with  javelins  and 
arrows  I  destroyed  under  him.  To  save  his  life  his  chariot 
he  abandoned,  he  mounted  a  mare,  and  before  his  troops  he 
fled.  Metatti  of  Zikirtu  and  his  neighbour  kings  I  defeated, 
like  ants  in  distress  they  travelled  the  difficult  roads.  For  the 
distance  of  six  double  hours,  from  Mount  Uaush  to  Mount 
Zimur,  the  jasper  mountain,  at  the  point  of  the  javelin  I  pur- 


234 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


sued  them.  Against  the  remnant  I  had  left  that  they  might 
glorify  the  success  of  Ashur  my  lord,  Adad  the  mighty  thunderer 
sent  forth  his  powerful  voice  and  by  the  flooding  clouds  and 
stones  from  heaven  he  completed  their  destruction.  Rusash 
feared  the  report  of  my  mighty  arms,  and  like  a  bird  of  the 
glen  who  flees  before  the  eagle  his  heart  trembled.  As  a  man 
who  has  poured  forth  blood,  he  left  Turushpa  (Tushpash),  his 
royal  city,  like  one  fleeing  the  hunter  he  reached  the  flank  of 
his  mountain.  As  a  woman  in  travail,  he  laid  himself  down  on 
a  couch,  food  and  water  he  refused,  an  incurable  disease  he 
inflicted  upon  himself.” 

Thus  the  tribesmen  of  Zikirtu  and  Andia  were  shut  off  from 
attacking  the  Mannai.  The  heart  of  Ullusunu  was  made  glad, 
and  for  the  miserable  inhabitants  the  light  was  brought  forth. 
In  joy  of  heart  and  gladness,  with  singers  and  harpers  and  tam¬ 
bourine-players,  Sargon  returned  to  camp  and  splendid  sacri¬ 
fices  for  the  gods  magnified  their  godhead. 

The  great  battle  had  taken  place  on  Mount  Sahend,  to  give 
it  its  modern  name,  and  probably  where  that  mountain  mass 
all  but  blocks  the  way  along  the  swampy  eastern  shore  of  Lake 
Urumia.  The  first  result  of  the  victory  was  the  recovery  of 
Uishdish  for  the  Mannai.  The  cities  which  Rusash  had 
founded,  numerous  as  the  stars  of  heaven,  were  won  over, 
their  mighty  walls  were  smashed  like  pots  to  the  foundations 
and  levelled  to  the  ground,  their  granaries  were  opened,  and 
barley  without  reckoning  was  given  to  the  soldiers  to  eat. 
With  the  great  fortress  of  Ushqaia,  the  head  of  the  boundary 
of  Haldia  was  reached,  which  closed  like  a  door  the  province 
of  Zaranda,  shut  off  the  Assyrian  messengers,  and  like  a  bound¬ 
ary  mark  gleamed,  and  above  the  territory  of  Subi  land  was 
clothed  with  glory.  On  the  great  plain  which  is  to-day  domi¬ 
nated  by  the  trading  centre  of  Tabriz,  there  dwelt  the  men  who 
had  no  equal  in  the  knowledge  of  riding  horses,  and  every  year 
they  sent  their  young  stallions  to  be  used  in  the  Haldian  army. 
When  the  inhabitants  beheld  the  defeat  of  their  king,  their 
legs  became  weak  like  the  root  on  the  bank  of  a  stream;  when 
the  fugitives  arrived  with  the  news  and  stooped  to  tell  them, 


PURPLE  PATCHES  OF  A  HISTORIAN 


235 


they  fell  down  like  dead  men  in  a  faint.  Ushqaia  was  aban¬ 
doned  and  its  occupiers  took  the  “Road  of  No  Return.”  Its 
mighty  wall,  set  on  the  solid  rock,  eight  cubits  in  thickness, 
was  completely  destroyed,  the  high  beams  of  the  houses  were 
fired,  with  the  smoke  the  heavens  were  covered  as  with  a 
cloud.  Like  an  inroad  of  grasshoppers,  the  cattle  in  the 
Assyrian  camp  were  sent  into  the  fields  and  all  the  forage 
was  consumed.  The  citizens  of  Sangibutu  abandoned  their 
double-walled  and  deep-ditched  cities  in  whose  midst  were 
stalls  for  the  horses  in  the  royal  army,  and  fled  to  a  dry  land, 
a  land  of  thirst  like  a  desert.  Crossing  Mount  Kishpal, 
Sargon  saw  at  its  foot  the  city  of  Ulhu. 

Oriental  despotism  had  here  shown  how  it  might  ameliorate 
the  hard  lot  of  the  common  people.  Where  before  there  was 
not  enough  water  for  drinking  purposes,  Rusash  brought  down 
a  veritable  stream  of  water,  in  abundance  like  the  Euphrates. 
From  its  breast  he  made  canals  without  number  to  go  forth, 
and  fruits  were  as  plenteous  as  rain.  Plane-trees  he  made  to 
bear  shad  as  a  forest,  like  a  god  the  king  made  the  dwellers  to 
give  forth  joyous  cries.  Three  hundred  inters  of  arable  land 
were  cultivated  in  grain,  the  desolate  fields  were  turned  into 
meadows,  herb  and  pasturage  ceased  not  summer  or  winter. 
The  men  were  taught  by  the  good  king  to  erect  dikes,  and  to 
overlook  all  this  work  of  his  hand  Rusash  built  a  palace  of 
sweet-smelling  cypress. 

Into  this  paradise  came  the  news  of  Sargon’s  approach. 
With  cries  of  despair  and  with  beating  of  breasts,  the  wretched 
inhabitants  abandoned  their  goods  and  fled  to  their  mountain 
slopes  by  night.  Like  an  earthen  pot,  the  invaders  destroyed, 
the  treasures  of  barley  were  carried  off  from  their  hidden 
grain-pits,  the  wine-skins,  filled  with  the  precious  liquid  like 
river  water,  were  slit  open,  the  wine-jars,  huge  pithoi  of  a 
hundred  gallons  or  more  such  as  have  been  excavated  near 
Van,  were  smashed,  and  the  sun  looked  down  on  the  empty 
fragments,  the  skins  dripped  wine  like  the  downpour  of  heaven. 
The  sound  of  the  axes  thundered  like  Adad  as  the  trees  and 
walls  were  cut  down.  Not  a  stalk  was  left  to  cover  the  ruin, 


236 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  meadows  in  which  they  had  grazed  horses  were  made  deso¬ 
late,  their  great  fortresses  and  the  fifty  surrounding  hamlets 
were  burned  to  the  ground.  And  the  whole  recital  of  this 
advance  of  Assyrian  culture  is  taken  from  their  own  narrative ! 

The  next  centre  of  Haldian  civilisation  was  in  the  heart  of 
the  mighty  cities  of  Sangibutu.  Again  we  have  the  irrigation 
system,  which  in  their  territory  never  knew  cessation,  but  the 
twenty-one  villages  were  better  guarded  with  walls  of  a  hundred 
and  twenty  courses  of  bricks,  with  deep  ditches  and  strong 
towers.  On  the  slopes  of  the  surrounding  mountains  were 
watch-towers,  whence  morning  and  evening  the  approach  of  an 
enemy  could  be  observed.  Again  the  inhabitants  fled  and 
took  their  position  on  the  mountainside.  Like  a  dense  cloud 
of  the  night,  the  Assyrians  covered  the  land,  the  cities  like 
grasshoppers  they  devoured,  their  troops  swarmed  up  the  slope 
like  wild  sheep.  The  sappers  climbed  the  walls,  and  with 
axes  cut  down  the  cypress  beams  of  the  palaces.  Their 
cleverly  built  houses  were  fired,  the  grain  was  loaded  on  pack 
animals  for  the  return  to  Assyria,  their  luxuriant  vineyards 
were  destroyed,  and  the  great  forests,  which  covered  the 
mountains  like  reeds,  were  hacked  down. 

Turning  due  west,  Sargon  made  for  Lake  Van.  The  capital 
Tushpash  was  at  this  point  but  a  few  miles  away,  but  he  dared 
not  attack  it.  Veering  to  the  north,  he  crossed  Mount  Uizuku, 
over  seven  thousand  feet  high,  and  the  mountain  of  cypresses, 
whose  product  is  coloured  breccia.  Thirty  cities  stretched 
along  the  shore  of  the  “ shaking  sea”;  the  others  were  aban¬ 
doned,  and  their  inhabitants  took  refuge  in  Argishtiuna  and 
Qallania,  solidly  set  on  the  mountains  where  they  gleamed  like 
stars.  The  capital  founded  by  Argishtish  on  the  northern 
shore  of  the  lake’s  northeastern  bay  gave  them  no  safety. 

Haldian  territory  was  left  at  Uaiais  (Uesi),  the  province  of 
their  confidence,  the  foot  of  the  frontier  of  the  land  of  Urartu, 
which  is  on  the  boundary  of  Nairi,  which  above  all  the  fortresses 
of  Rusash  was  strong  and  cleverly  constructed  in  work,  where 
his  valorous  soldiers,  the  spies,  brought  in  the  news  of  the 
lands  round  about  as  they  dwelt  in  its  midst,  and  the  governors 


PURPLE  PATCHES  OF  A  HISTORIAN 


237 


with  their  troops  were  brought  into  it  by  the  king  and  were 
protected  by  its  mighty  walls.  That  this  is  no  exaggeration  is 
shown  by  a  view  of  the  modern  Bitlis,  clustering  around  its 
castle  at  the  junction  of  two  streams,  in  the  narrow  gorge  sur¬ 
rounded  by  mountains,  and  commanding  the  only  direct 
egress  to  the  south  from  the  Haldian  capital.  The  rear  of 
the  fort  was  secured  and  Haldian  troops  crushed  like  lambs 
before  the  gate,  the  vineyards  and  forests  were  destroyed, 
but  the  citadel  remained  untouched,  a  centre  for  espionage  or 
for  sudden  surprise  attacks  upon  Assyrian  lands. 

Down  the  valley  of  the  east  Tigris,  and  through  the  tunnel 
attributed  by  modern  legend  to  Semiramis,  Sargon  marched 
to  the  land  which  the  archaising  historian  names  Nairi,  though 
in  this  century  it  was  usually  called  Hubushkia  from  its  royal 
city.  Four  hours  to  the  north,  he  was  met  by  the  Ianzu,  and 
was  conducted  to  the  capital  to  receive  the  annual  tribute. 

At  Hubushkia,  the  modern  Sert,  Sargon  was  well  beyond  the 
mountain  barrier,  and  the  territory  properly  Assyrian  was  not 
far  distant.  His  wearied  troops  might  well  expect  an  end  to 
an  unusually  strenuous  expedition.  But  Sargon  willed  other¬ 
wise.  If  he  had  in  truth  expected  to  receive  the  submission  of 
Musasir,  he  was  disappointed,  for  Urzana  sent  not  a  single 
messenger  to  ask  the  royal  peace.  The  entrails  were  examined, 
and  Shamash  indicated  that  defeat  should  be  the  lot  of  the 
Guti.  The  scholars  who  followed  the  royal  train  identified 
this  ancient  mountain  race  with  the  more  northern  Musasir, 
and  Sargon  was  content  with  the  omen. 

The  greater  part  of  the  army  and  all  the  camp  impedimenta 
were  sent  direct  to  Assyria,  while  Sargon,  accompanied  only 
by  the  thousand  cavalry  and  spearmen  who  formed  his  body¬ 
guard,  advanced  due  east  up  the  valley  of  the  modern  Bohtan 
Chai  and  into  the  very  heart  of  the  frontier  range.  Leaving 
the  valley,  he  led,  in  his  chariot,  his  men  over  Mount  Arsiu, 
whose  summit  could  be  no  more  ascended  than  the  height  of  a 
peak,  and  down  into  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Zab.  This 
river  crossed,  there  came  another  difficult  road.  “  Between 
the  high  mountains,  the  elevated  ravines,  the  peaks  of  the 


238 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


difficult  mountains,  which  pass  all  describing,  and  in  their 
recesses  was  no  road  for  the  advance  of  my  body-guard, 
mighty  torrents  of  water  traverse  its  midst,  and  the  voices  of 
its  mountain  slopes  thunder  for  an  hour’s  distance  like  the 
voice  of  the  god  Adad.  All  useful  trees,  fruits,  and  desirable 
vines  cover  it,  but  in  its  narrow  defiles  it  is  full  of  fear,  where 
no  king  had  passed,  and  no  prince  who  preceded  me  had 
seen  their  road.  Their  great  trunks  I  cut  down  and  their 
difficult  peaks  with  axes  of  copper  I  cut.  A  narrow  road,  a 
passage,  a  street,  where  the  body-guard  could  pass  by  the  side, 
for  the  advance  of  my  troops  between  them  I  constructed.  My 
own  chariot  I  placed  on  the  necks  of  men,  and  I  mounted  my 
horse  at  the  head  of  my  troops.  My  warriors  with  the  horse¬ 
men  who  went  by  my  side  marched  in  single  file,  and  with  diffi¬ 
culty  I  made  them  traverse  it.”  Exaggeration  there  is  little, 
for  the  modern  traveller  still  sees  the  same  combination  of 
fruitful  valley  and  savage  mountain  surrounding. 

Mighty  cattle  and  sheep  without  number  were  being  sacri¬ 
ficed  in  Musasir  before  the  national  god  Haldia,  who  was 
crowned  with  the  royal  crown  and  bore  the  royal  sceptre  of 
Urartu.  In  vain  were  the  sacrifices,  for  Urzana  barely  escaped 
and  alone,  leaving  his  family  and  his  subjects  to  what  mercy 
might  be  shown  by  the  invaders.  The  old  men  and  the  women 
ascended  to  the  roofs  of  their  houses,  weeping  sadly,  and  crawl¬ 
ing  on  their  four  paws  to  win  a  safe  life  for  themselves.  But 
Sargon  had  no  mercy,  and  the  sins  of  the  king  were  visited  upon 
his  helpless  subjects.  “ Since  Urzana  had  not  submitted  him¬ 
self  to  the  word  of  Ashur  but  had  cast  off  the  yoke  of  my  lord- 
ship  and  had  refused  to  do  his  service,  I  determined  that  the 
men  of  that  city  should  be  made  captive,  and  I  ordered  that 
the  god  Haldia,  the  confidence  of  Urartu,  should  go  forth, 
before  his  city  gate  I  placed  him  as  a  conqueror.” 

With  all  due  allowance  for  the  inevitable  overstatement,  the 
booty  was  obviously  enormous,  and  the  details  are  of  equal 
value  in  affording  an  insight  into  the  resources  of  such  a  moun¬ 
tain  ruler  and  into  the  peculiar  civilisation  of  the  suzerain 
Haldia.  The  captives  are  given  as  six  thousand  one  hundred 


PURPLE  PATCHES  OF  A  HISTORIAN 


239 


and  ten,  probably  not  far  from  the  true  population  of  the  city; 
the  number  of  animals,  twelve  mules,  three  hundred  and  eighty 
asses,  five  hundred  and  twenty-five  cattle,  one  thousand  two 
hundred  and  thirty-five  sheep,  is  surprisingly  moderate. 
From  the  heaped-up  chambers,  gorged  with  hidden  treasures, 
whose  seals  had  been  opened,  were  taken  thirty-four  talents 
of  gold,  one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  of  silver,  pure  bronze, 
lead,  carnelian,  lapis  lazuli,  sceptres  of  ivory,  ebony,  and  box, 
inlaid  with  gold  and  silver,  vases  of  all  sorts,  among  which  are 
especially  mentioned  caldrons  of  Tabal  with  handles  of  gold, 
ablution  vessels  of  bronze,  golden  daggers  and  poignards,  fly- 
flappers  of  gold,  silver  incense-burners  of  Tabal,  many  other 
objects  of  bronze  “the  setting  down  of  whose  names  for  the 
purpose  of  writing  is  not  easy,  ”  as  the  wearied  scribe  confesses, 
a  confession  echoed  most  heartily  by  the  modern  translator  as 
to  many  of  the  objects  whose  meaning  he  must  determine, 
many  objects  of  iron  such  as  lamps,  coloured  cloths,  and  chi¬ 
tons,  the  product  of  Urartu  and  Kirhi. 

When  the  ridia  officials  approached  the  Haldia  temple,  they 
found  there  the  deity  with  his  consort  Bagbartu,  whose  Ira¬ 
nian  name  hints  that  she  was  once  a  god,  made  female  when 
the  land  was  brought  under  the  sway  of  the  supreme  Haldia. 
Still  richer  spoil  was  afforded  by  the  temple  treasures.  Much 
gold,  one  hundred  and  sixty-two  talents  of  silver,  three  thou¬ 
sand  six  hundred  of  crude  copper  were  but  a  beginning.  Golden 
bucklers  stood  at  either  side  of  the  temple,  of  a  weight  of  five 
talents  each,  red  like  flame,  and  within  them  gleamed  the  heads 
of  menacing  dogs.  The  golden  shields  have  disappeared,  but 
the  great  sanctuary  near  Van  has  preserved  bronze  shields  of 
the  second  and  third  Rusash,  with  concentric  bands  of  lions 
and  bulls  who  might  have  been  taken  from  the  Assyrian  monu¬ 
ments.  Two  talents  of  fine  gold  went  into  a  portal  for  his 
doors,  in  the  likeness  of  such  a  horned  animal  as  we  observe 
on  the  shields.  The  lock  was  in  the  form  of  a  human  hand, 
a  talisman  such  as  has  been  found  in  gypsum,  while  the  bar 
which  closed  the  door  had  a  winged  “Deluge”  crouching  like 
a  dragon.  Two  golden  keys  were  in  the  form  of  female  colossi, 


240 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


crowned  and  bearing  the  spiked  club  and  the  divine  circle, 
while  the  base  was  guarded  by  menacing  dogs. 

Here  too  were  deposited  the  golden  sword  that  Urzana  wore 
at  his  side,  bucklers  embellished  with  the  deluge  dragon, 
lions,  or  wild  bulls,  basins,  and  vessels  of  silver  encrusted  with 
gold,  two  great  horns  of  the  wild  bull  inlaid  with  gold,  the  sig¬ 
net  ring  which  brought  to  completion  the  orders  of  the  goddess 
Bagbartu,  her  ivory  bed  ornamented  with  gold  and  precious 
stones,  ivory  wands,  poignards  of  ebony  and  tables  of  box, 
lances  and  daggers  of  bronze  which  actually  have  been  recov¬ 
ered  in  great  numbers,  a  great  laver  of  bronze  that  held  eighty 
measures  of  water  and  which  was  filled  with  sacrificial  wine 
when  the  kings  of  Urartu  sacrificed  before  Haldia. 

A  regular  statuary  hall  is  described.  Four  in  bronze  repre¬ 
sented  the  great  guardians  who  protected  his  gate,  and  one  of 
them  was  in  prayer.  The  small  bronze  models  are  roughly 
Assyrian  in  design,  but  with  face  turned  to  side,  flat  crown,  and 
human  hands  grasping  each  other  over  the  breast,  a  link  be¬ 
tween  the  fully  animal  bodies  of  the  Assyrians  and  the  Greek 
centaurs  with  four  animal  feet  and  two  human  hands.  Sar- 
durish,  predecessor  of  Rusash,  was  here,  and  if  we  would  realise 
how  he  looked,  we  turn  to  the  statue  found  near  the  Van 
sanctuary.  The  body  is  bronze  gilt,  the  head  is  of  white  stone, 
the  eyes  and  necklace  were  of  precious  gems.  To  our  minds, 
this  is  a  strange  combination,  but  the  effect  must  have  been 
much  similar  to  the  chryselephantine  statues  of  the  best  Greek 
period.  The  right  hand  holds  a  palm-leaf  fan,  the  left  grasps 
tightly  a  long  narrow  band  which  falls  over  the  left  shoulder 
and  ends  in  a  looped  cord.  The  face  is  beardless,  and  we  may 
see  here  a  eunuch  attendant.1  Likewise  to  be  seen  was  the 
group  of  the  bull,  the  cow,  and  the  calf,  into  which  Sardurish 
had  changed  the  accumulated  bronze  of  the  temple.  Argish- 
tish  was  standing  in  a  house  of  sixty  talents’  weight,  his  head 
crowned  with  the  starry  diadem  of  the  gods,  his  right  hand 
extended  in  benediction.  Rusash  himself  was  there  with  his 

1  For  excavations  at  Toprakkaleh,  cf.  Lehmann-Haupt,  Abh.  Ges.  Gottingen , 
NF.,  IX,  3;  Lynch,  Armenia,  II,  62  ff. 


////////// 


n  n  n ' 

^n/ 

iT  n ' 

.1  ..  i_XCU  .  1  i  f  .1 

1 

.  (  r  a 

n  n 

n 

j  ;i  i  i 

n  "i  n 

i 

u  1 1  j 

Fig.  101.  PLUNDER  OF  THE  “GREEK”  TEMPLE  AT  MUSASIR. 


If ym  V 


Fig.  102.  WEIGHING  OUT  THE  BOOTY  OF  MUSASIR. 


. 


PURPLE  PATCHES  OF  A  HISTORIAN 


241 


two  chariot  horses,  his  charioteer,  and  this  boastful  inscription : 
“With  my  horses  and  my  single  charioteer,  my  hands  have 
conquered  the  kingdom  of  Urartu.” 

On  the  wall  of  Dur  Sharrukin  a  city  with  triple  circumval- 
lation  lies  in  the  midst  of  steep  mountains.  From  its  towers 
women  stretch  out  their  hands  in  supplication.  On  the  op¬ 
posite  side  of  the  city  an  official  sits  on  a  camp-stool  placed 
upon  the  inner  wall,  and  the  two  scribes  with  stylus  and  clay 
tablet  or  pen  and  papyrus  reckon  up  the  spoil.  In  the  centre 
is  the  temple,  with  its  almost  Greek  pediment,  its  hexastyle 
front,  its  two  outer  pillars  hung  with  shields,  its  middle  ones 
banded,  the  two  on  either  side  the  low  door  adorned  only  by 
the  statues  in  front.  One  is  indeed  a  figure  with  hand  raised 
to  bless,  its  companion  is  helmeted  and  stretches  out  his  arm 
in  a  more  menacing  manner,  but  behind  each  is  a  spear,  double 
man  length.  From  the  columns  extend  gargoyles  like  the 
threatening  heads  of  beasts,  in  the  court  is  the  calf  suckled  by 
the  cow,  and  in  front  are  the  two  huge  layers  with  their  ox¬ 
footed  support.  Assyrian  soldiers  swarm  up  the  column  by 
the  aid  of  a  rope,  or  run  across  the  sloping  roof  with  its  tall 
spearlike  acroterium,  and  throw  down  the  lion-bossed  bucklers 
which  adorn  the  summit.  The  huge  bronze  statue  in  long  robe 
and  pointed  helmet  is  being  hewn  to  pieces  while  two  eunuchs 
weigh  the  fragments  in  the  scale-pan. 

Not  the  least  pleasing  result  of  this  wholesale  spoliation  was 
the  recovery  of  the  objects,  in  every  sort  of  metal,  which  the 
enemy  had  plundered  from  Assyrian  cities.  The  inhabitants 
of  the  little  town  were  counted  as  Assyrians,  and  dues  and  the 
corvee  were  inflicted  upon  them.  Affliction  was  sprinkled 
over  all  Urartu,  and  tears  for  eternity  established  over  Nairi. 
The  “chief  tongues,”  the  captives,  were  sent  to  Ashur  by 
Tab-shar  Ashur,  the  great  abarakku.  After  all  this  cam¬ 
paigning,  against  such  enemies  and  through  such  territory,  we 
are  asked  to  believe  that  the  total  loss  was  one  charioteer, 
two  cavalrymen,  and  three  pioneers ! 

When  the  Haldian  heard  the  news,  he  crouched  on  the 
ground  and  rent  his  garments,  he  ripped  off  his  fillet  and  tore 


242 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


his  hair,  flat  on  the  ground  he  threw  himself,  his  heart  was 
angry,  his  liver  burned,  in  his  mouth  were  fixed  bitter  words. 
This  should  mean,  if  anything  but  rhetoric,  that  he  was  ill. 
Before  many  years,  the  story  was  much  improved.  The  sheep, 
for  example,  in  seven  years  increased  from  one  thousand  two 
hundred  and  thirty-five  to  one  hundred  thousand  two  hundred 
and  twenty-five.  Legend  now  told  how  when  Rusash  heard 
of  the  capture  of  his  god  Haldia,  with  his  own  iron  dagger,  like 
a  pig,  his  heart  he  pierced,  his  life  he  ended.  It  is  all  most 
pathetic. 

A  bilingual  stele,  Haldian  and  Assyrian,  stands  near  one  of 
the  eastern  passes,  where  some  have  placed  the  site  of  Musasir. 
On  it  Rusash  tells  how  Urzana  entered  the  temple  of  the  gods 
before  him,  how  Urzana’s  troops  took  the  oath  of  loyalty  in  the 
temple  of  Haldia.  Rusash  went  to  the  Assyrian  mountains 
to  fight,  then  grasped  Urzana  by  the  hand  and  made  him  king 
in  Musasir,  or,  rather,  in  Ardinish,  as  the  Haldian  version  has  it. 
Fifteen  days  he  delayed  in  Musasir,  while  he  restored  the 
former  offerings.  His  last  success  was  in  the  Lulu  land  which 
the  Assyrian  version  calls  the  land  of  Akkad.  The  record  ends 
with  the  assurance  that  the  gods  gave  days  of  joy.  For  a 
suicide,  Rusash  appeared  somewhat  troublesome  still  to  the 
Assyrians. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  expedition  so  elaborately 
reported  was  a  mere  raid,  spectacular  and  destructive,  but 
entirely  destitute  of  enduring  results.  If  it  has  been  quoted 
at  length,  it  is  because  of  its  literary  interest,  for  the  light  it 
sheds  on  Sargon’s  character,  and  for  its  surprising  revelation 
of  the  height  reached  by  civilisation  in  the  northern  lands. 


CHAPTER  XX 


DEIOCES  AND  THE  MEDIAN  FOUNDATIONS 

The  veracious  “ Father  of  History”  sponsors  an  entertain¬ 
ing  tale  about  the  origins  of  the  Median  power.  After  the 
Assyrians  had  ruled  Upper  Asia  for  five  hundred  and  twenty 
years,  he  says,  the  Medes  first  of  all  their  subjects  revolted  and 
in  a  single  battle  completely  freed  themselves.  The  other 
dependent  peoples  followed  their  example,  and  thereafter  all 
enjoyed  what  the  Greek  believed  the  greatest  of  all  blessings, 
complete  autonomy. 

Such  happiness  was  too  great  to  last.  In  due  course  tyranny 
arose  and  in  the  following  manner:  Once  upon  a  time  there  was 
a  man  named  Deioces,  the  son  of  Phraortes,  and  he  was  a  very 
wise  man  and  a  village  chief.  The  Medes  lived  scattered  here 
and  there  in  villages,  and  if  one  wronged  another,  there  was 
none  to  do  justice.  So  Deioces  set  up  as  a  wise  man,  render¬ 
ing  righteous  judgments  till  his  fame  grew  nation-wide  and  all 
came  to  him  to  right  their  wrongs.  Now  Deioces  found  that 
this  was  wasting  all  his  time,  so  he  craftily  refused  to  act  longer 
as  judge.  Pie  might  be  retained  as  judge  in  one  only  manner, 
and  the  Medes,  perceiving  this,  called  an  assembly  and  offered 
Deioces  the  kingship.  Like  a  good  Greek  tyrant,  he  refused  to 
accept  unless  he  were  permitted  to  enroll  a  body-guard  and 
was  given  a  palace.  Once  in  power,  he  forced  the  Medes  to 
abandon  their  villages,  and  with  them  founded  the  great  city 
of  Ecbatana.  After  a  reign  of  full  fifty-three  years,  Deioces 
was  followed  by  his  son  Phraortes,  but  not  until  he  had  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  Median  empire  that  was  to  be.1 

Reality  was  in  almost  every  respect  different.  Pile  original 
home  of  the  Medes  had  been  that  Iranian  plateau  whose  im- 

1  Herod.,  I,  95  ff. 

243 


244 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


portance  as  a  centre  of  racial  and  cultural  diffusion  we  are  only 
beginning  to  appreciate.  They  seem  to  have  been  akin  to  the 
later  Persians  ethnologically,  and  their  language  may  be  con¬ 
sidered  a  Persian  dialect.  Their  culture  was  still  essentially 
nomadic,  though  they  had  been  settled  long  enough  in  the 
mountains  to  have  taken  on  some  of  the  characteristics  of  a 
sedentary  people.  Their  cities  were  regularly  on  a  hill  com¬ 
manding  a  stream.  On  the  highest  point  was  a  citadel,  and 
two  or  even  three  walls  were  not  uncommon.  Towers  and  bat¬ 
tlements  had  been  borrowed  from  their  neighbours,  and  the 
gates  were  frequently  arched.  In  dress  and  arms  they  had 
learned  less  from  the  Assyrians.  Their  hair  was  short  and  held 
by  a  red  fillet,  their  short  beard  was  curled.  Over  a  tunic  they 
wore  a  sheepskin  coat  which  the  Assyrian  artist  considered  so 
curious  that  he  repeated  it  times  without  number.  High 
laced  boots  formed  another  conspicuous  part  of  their  costume, 
and  occasionally  we  detect  those  same  upturned  shoes  that  we 
have  come  to  consider  Hittite.  Unlike  the  desert  nomad, 
they  carried  no  bow  or  sword;  their  regular  weapon  of  offence 
was  a  long  spear,  of  defence  a  rectangular  wicker  shield. 

Not  the  slightest  sense  of  unity  can  be  detected.  Some 
leaders  appear  a  little  more  important  than  others;  in  the  typi¬ 
cal  list  of  Median  names,  no  village  chief  appears  superior  to 
his  companions.  These  names  are  perfectly  good  Iranian,  and 
in  meaning  agree  with  the  quasi-nomadic  culture  still  the  back¬ 
ground  of  the  earlier  hymns  of  the  Avesta.  Mazda  worship 
is  already  in  existence,  but  the  more  developed  deity,  Ahura 
Mazda,  is  never  invoked  in  their  names,  and  this  seems  to 
prove  that  the  prophet  Zoroaster,  the  sacred  books  of  the 
Avesta,  and  Ahura  Mazda  himself  are  yet  in  the  future. 

There  was  too  much  nomadism  in  the  Median  blood  to  per¬ 
mit  them  to  be  content  in  mountains  more  conspicuous  for 
picturesqueness  than  for  fertility.  As  early  as  835,  Shal¬ 
maneser  had  discovered  them  ousting  the  earlier  tribes  on  the 
eastern  frontier,  and  succeeding  monarchs  filled  their  annals 
with  unmeaning  lists  of  village  chiefs  and  of  the  hamlets  or 
tribes  they  ruled.  Often  they  sent  gifts  which  the  Assyrians 


y 


Fig.  103.  MEDIAN  CHIEF  PRESENTING 
CITY  MODEL. 


Fig.  104.  SIEGE  OF  A  MEDIAN  CITY 


DEIOCES  AND  THE  MEDIAN  FOUNDATIONS  245 


called  tribute,  sometimes  the  presence  of  an  Assyrian  general 
produced  a  temporary  acceptance  of  the  Assyrian  yoke;  if 
the  Medes  were  never  effectually  controlled  by  the  Assyrians, 
no  more  did  they  revolt  and  defeat  them  in  one  great  battle. 

A  Deioces  there  was  in  truth  and  he  was  a  village  chief,  but 
he  did  not  end  his  days  as  the  revered  founder  of  a  new  Median 
empire  in  his  splendid  metropolis  of  Ecbatana;  Daiaukku  was 
a  “  governor  of  the  Mannai”  who  had  given  his  son  as  hostage 
to  Rusash,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  irate  Assyrians,  and  was 
deported  to  Hamath  in  Syria  (715).  Name,  time,  place  never¬ 
theless  prove  that  this  petty  princeling  is  the  historical  Deioces. 
His  “house”  survived  to  a  later  date,  and  he  may  after  all  have 
been  an  ancestor  of  the  dynasty  which  ultimately  made  Media 
the  greatest  power  in  the  world. 

Thanks  to  the  exertions  of  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  Sargon  was 
well  situated  on  this  frontier.  Northwest  and  beyond  the 
Mannai  lay  Andia,  whose  king  sent  tribute.  An  unknown 
correspondent  tells  how  his  son  Iala  has  arrived  with  this 
tribute  of  fifty-one  horses,  and  with  him  Abit-shar-usur,  a 
Mannai  official,  who  later  writes  that  Nabu-eresh,  the  Chal- 
dsean  who  had  been  sent  in  honourable  exile  to  this  far  border 
with  orders  that  he  be  watched  secretly,  has  suddenly  left 
with  the  statement  that  he  was  going  to  bear  his  greetings  to 
the  palace.1 

Between  Arbela  and  Musasir  was  Kirruri,  a  province  since 
the  ninth  century,  whose  governor  was  Shamash-upahhir. 
South  of  it  was  Parsua,  and  again  to  the  south  of  this  last,  be¬ 
tween  the  Zab  and  Diyala  Rivers,  on  the  first  outliers  of  the 
eastern  mountains,  lay  Arrapha  under  Ishtar-duri.  East  of 
this  was  Lulume,  the  later  representative  of  Mazamua,  an  ill- 
defined  district  in  the  Median  highland,  whose  governor, 
Sharru-emuranni,  bore  the  brunt  of  the  conflict. 

Shamash-upahhir  writes  of  the  village  chiefs  who  are  under 
his  feet,  and  the  chiefs  themselves  complain  of  the  king's  order 
to  work  in  the  mountain  ravines;  they  are  obeying  his  com¬ 
mands,  but  the  work  is  heavy  upon  them,  heavy  exceedingly, 

1  H.  466;  411. 


246 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


and  they  cannot  perform  their  task.  May  they  receive  their 
ration  of  oil  and  food  as  they  enter  the  land.1 

The  governor  of  Parsua,  under  the  protection  of  the  wicker 
shield  held  by  his  squire,  sent  his  shower  of  arrows  against 
the  city  of  Kishesim,  the  postern  gate  was  fired,  and  on  the 
relief  the  flames  appear  as  huge  stag’s  horns.  The  city’s  name 
was  changed  to  “Fort  of  Nabu.”  Harhar  had  entered  into 
close  relations  with  Dalta  of  Elli,  who  had  not  yet  earned  the 
fame  of  a  “vassal  who  loved  my  yoke.”  This  was  sufficiently 
serious  to  bring  out  the  king  in  person.  The  triple-walled 
city  was  commanded  by  an  isolated  rock  citadel,  and  around  it 
flowed  a  good-sized  stream.  The  sheepskin  cavalry  was  driven 
into  the  city,  a  frieze  of  fourteen  impaled  citizens  was  lined 
along  its  unbroken  lower  wall,  the  city  was  taken  by  escalade. 
In  honour  of  the  royal  visit,  the  name  was  changed  to  Kar 
Sharrukin,  the  “Wall  of  Sargon.” 

Instructions  were  given  Mannu-ki  Ninua,  the  new  governor, 
to  go  against  the  Medes.  He  reports  that  the  royal  officers 
established  peace  and  returned  in  safety.  He  is  building  a 
great  house  in  Kar  Sharrukin  and  bringing  the  land  under 
cultivation.  The  walls  will  be  extended  according  to  the  writ¬ 
ten  recommendations.  The  Medes  round  about  are  quiet 
and  he  is  carrying  on  his  work.  The  king  has  ordered  him  to 
go  to  the  aid  of  Sharru-emuranni,  governor  of  Lulume.  The 
son  of  Ludu  is  to  direct  him,  but  no  one  is  to  be  permitted  to 
see  him,  since  he  is  one  of  the  supposed  enemy.  This  manoeuvre 
has  been  successfully  executed,  and  he  is  now  back  at  the  capi¬ 
tal.  His  royal  master  has  demanded  what  he  meant  by  not 
sending  the  grain;  his  reply  is  that  the  rains  fall  continually 
and  the  grain  in  consequence  is  cut  off  from  the  granary. 

There  is  news  of  Dalta.  The  people  of  Zabgaga  have  left 
his  house  and  are  now  with  their  brethren.  Mannu-ki  Ninua, 
therefore,  went  to  their  town  and  imposed  the  oath  upon  them. 
The  governorship  has  been  restored  and  they  are  at  peace, 
but  they  have  besought  him  about  the  city  of  Zabgaga.  Nabu- 
bel-ukin  has  been  placed  over  them,  and  the  governor  has  ad- 

1  H.  136;  526. 


DEIOCES  AND  THE  MEDIAN  FOUNDATIONS  247 


vised  them:  “As  Nabu-bel-ukin  has  poured  out  the  libation 
at  the  time  of  the  oath-taking,  I  will  watch  over  you  and  your 
words,  I  shall  summon  the  men  before  the  king.  Whatever 
news  they  hear  of  these  people,  they  will  send  to  me.”  The 
men  are  to  attend  to  the  welfare  of  the  messengers  and  are  to 
receive  clothing  and  silver  rings  in  return.  They  say:  “The 
king  has  given  us  command,  before  the  governor  we  stand/ ’ 
The  city  of  Sanir  has  likewise  taken  the  oath,  and  he  spoke 
kind  words  to  them,  such  as  the  king  his  lord  loves.  As  for 
those  who  would  not  come  down  to  take  oath,  their  brethren 
have  promised  that  they  should  be  forced  to  descend. 

Fifteen  of  the  fifty  soldiers  who  went  to  Nikur  before  him 
are  dead,  but'  they  went  from  the  houses  of  the  enemy  and 
took  cattle  and  sheep.  When  raiders  started  out  from  the 
Median  country,  he  learned  of  it,  and  sent  for  aid  to  the  Mannai 
and  Mazamua,  yet  the  king  has  chided  him:  “Seize  the  for¬ 
agers/’  The  king  should  know  whether  he  is  careless  or 
whether  he  has  executed  his  tasks.1 

Details  of  the  campaign  of  716  are  shown  in  the  reliefs. 
A  eunuch  led  the  attack,  aided  by  a  body  of  most  peculiar 
auxiliaries.  Here  they  have  a  shirt  of  fringed  cloth  with  stepped 
pyramid  ornament  on  the  lower  portion.  Under  a  cap  their 
hair  is  short  and  so  is  their  beard,  their  girdle  is  broad,  they 
wear  sandals.  Elsewhere,  they  have  only  a  strip  around  their 
hips  which  is  adorned  with  serrated  lozenges.  Their  bows  and 
arrows  are  red,  the  iron  tip  is  blue,  the  long  quivers  are  intri¬ 
cately  decorated.  An  unknown  city  shows  a  royal  stele  inserted 
in  the  wall. 

In  714  we  begin  to  hear  of  Sharru-emuranni  of  Lulume.  He 
insists  most  strenuously  that  he  is  not  the  son  of  a  village  chief, 
but  a  high  official;  the  king  has  assigned  him  his  position,  and 
whatever  he  hears  and  whatever  he  sees  he  will  report  to  the 
king  his  lord.  He  has  in  part  stationed  his  troops  as  ordered, 
but  the  son  of  Bel-iddina  has  refused  to  take  the  road  with  him, 
the  nobles  hold  back,  only  the  baser  sort  went  with  him;  if 
the  king  will  only  send  an  official  of  the  mule’s  stable  to  go  with 

1  H.  126-129;  1008;  556. 


248 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


him,  then  will  they  desert  and  revolt.  As  to  what  the  king 
has  written,  “If  the  horses  of  which  a  rumour  has  arrived  fall 
into  your  hands,  come  and  bring  them/’  the  merchants  of 
Kumesa  are  upright,  he  is  awaiting  them.  When  the  sheep 
did  not  arrive,  he  sent  the  servants  of  the  king  to  Kibatki, 
the  people  were  terrified  and  laid  down  their  weapons.  When 
they  send  to  him,  he  will  put  them  in  a  net  and  bring  them  to 
the  king.  The  king  has  demanded:  “Why  have  you  delayed 
and  not  awaited  the  governor  of  Arrapha?”  Ishtar-duri  has 
left  Zaban  and  has  taken  the  road  to  Parsua.  They  went  up 
to  Mount  Nipur  together.  He  agrees  that  the  son  of  Bel- 
iddina  should  go  with  him.  Let  Nabu-hamatua  do  the  king’s 
task  in  repairing  the  breaches  of  the  royal  forts.1 

Nabu-hamatua  has  himself  received  a  personal  letter  from 
the  governor  of  the  Median  country  requesting  that  his  mes¬ 
senger  bring  the  people  to  the  palace.  He  has  spoken  kindly 
words  to  them  and  set  their  minds  at  rest.  But  as  for  the  son 
of  Bel-iddina,  he  is  a  scoundrel  and  a  liar,  who  will  not  hearken. 
In  reality,  Nabu-hamatua  has  made  the  natives  abandon  their 
six  forts  and  has  said  to  them:  “Go  to,  let  each  man  build  his 
house  upon  his  field,  and  let  him  dwell  there;  let  each  of  you 
do  his  work  in  his  field.  Let  your  hearts  make  you  joyful, 
for  you  are  the  servants  of  the  king.”  They  are  at  peace  and 
do  their  work,  while  the  king’s  servants  have  entered  the  forts 
and  have  made  the  watch  strong.  He  has  tabulated  accord¬ 
ing  to  their  flesh  the  five  horses  Ullusunu  handed  over  to 
Asharidu.  Three  times  a  year  the  official  of  Asharidu  of 
whom  the  king  inquired  has  fled  from  Nabu-hamatua,  let  them 
bring  down  his  land  as  a  district.  The  king  has  also  inquired 
about  Bel-ahe  the  trader,  the  writer  has  sent  secretly  and  will 
bring  him.2 

Nabu-ahi-iddina  is  in  trouble.  The  king  gave  him  orders  to 
transmit  to  various  officials,  but  there  has  been  little  result. 
When  he  informed  Nabu-hamatua,  and  he  in  turn  the  chief¬ 
tains,  they  refused,  since  their  land  had  been  assigned  to  the 
second  officer  of  Hamban.  The  king  had  ordered  that  fifty- 
1  H.  319;  317;  310-312.  2  H  2Q8;  1058. 


DEIOCES  AND  THE  MEDIAN  FOUNDATIONS  249 


two  riding  horses  should  be  given  to  certain  chiefs  and  the  re¬ 
mainder  sent  on  to  the  king,  but  they  say:  “He  has  asked  an 
evil  thing,  they  shall  all  go  with  us.”  1 

Dalta  had  now  changed  his  policy  with  the  loss  of  five  border 
towns  to  the  Elamites;  Assyria  recovered  them  for  him,  and 
the  letters  of  Nergal-etir,  the  chief  hostler,  Show  him  sending 
his  horses  to  the  palace,  though  once  he  is  reported  for  failure 
to  pay  his  dues.2  He  had  departed  this  life  by  708,  and  his 
sons  Nibe  and  Ishpabare  contested  the  throne.  Nibe  called 
in  the  Elamite  Shutruk  Nahhunte,  his  brother  summoned 
Assyrian  aid.  Ishtar-duri  of  Arrapha  regretted  that  the 
Assyrian  troops  were  few  in  numbers  and  scattered  in  Media, 
but  they  will  obey  orders.  He  has  observed  the  heavenly 
bodies,  and  has  sent  word  for  troops  to  take  their  position  with 
Marduk-shar-usur.  This  Marduk-shar-usur  has  been  asked 
by  the  king  for  news  from  Nagiu.  The  king  of  Elli  on  his  own 
initiative  declared  that  Sangibutu  has  been  given  to  Marduk- 
shar-usur.  The  Assyrian  has  assured  Kibaba:  “Your  cities 
will  be  cared  for,  they  have  been  taken  away;  if  you  attempt  to 
attack  them  or  try  to  overthrow  them,  I  shall  fall  upon  you.” 
These  men  have  a  hundred  horsemen  and  they  are  continually 
opposing  the  king.  Twenty  horsemen  of  Iptu  and  the  re¬ 
mainder  of  the  horsemen  of  Ishpabare  who  go  with  them,  they 

cannot  have.3 

% 

Four  thousand  five  hundred  bowmen  were  sent  from  Elam 
to  garrison  Elli,  but  the  seven  generals  of  Sargon  won  the  day, 
stormed  the  capital  Marubishta  on  a  high  mountain,  made 
Nibe  a  prisoner,  and  placed  Ishpabare  on  the  throne.  His 
revolt  a  bare  six  years  later  is  only  one  indication  among  many 
of  the  untenable  position  of  the  Assyrians  in  Media.  The 
attempt  to  dam  back  the  Median  tribes  was  an  impossible 
one,  but  Sargon  did  what  he  could,  and  at  least  postponed  the 
evil  day. 

i  H.  884.  2  H.  226  f . ;  236.  3  H.  159  ff . ;  174. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


MERODACH  BALADAN  THE  CHALDEAN 

“An  ancient  nation”  the  prophet  Jeremiah  calls  the  Chal¬ 
dseans.1  The  prophet  was  justified,  for  already  they  had  a 
respectable  antiquity  behind  them  when  he  delivered  his 
oracle.  Modern  scholars,  however,  were  not  justified  in  assum¬ 
ing  from  this  statement  and  from  the  references  in  the  classical 
writers  that  Chaldsea  was  the  earliest  name  of  the  alluvium 
and  that  the  Chaldseans  were  the  earliest  inhabitants. 

The  Chaldseans  were  an  Aramaean  tribe  who  entered  Baby¬ 
lonia  some  thousand  years  before  our  era,  and  who  first  appear 
in  written  history  in  851  when  Shalmaneser  III  met  in  west- 
central  Babylonia  a  sealand  king  named  Iakinu.  His  two 
lone  attendants  and  the  scantiness  of  his  tribute  marked  him  as 
a  minor  personage,  but  he  gave  his  name  to  the  “house”  of 
Iakin,  which  was  to  be  the  future  title  of  the  Kaldu  family. 
Adad-nirari  III  found  the  Chaldseans  plundering  Babylonia, 
and  shortly  thereafter  the  throne  itself  was  held  by  Marduk- 
apal-iddina  II  (804-802),  who  bears  the  same  name  as  the 
Biblical  Merodach  Baladan,  and  was  probably  one  of  his  im¬ 
mediate  ancestors.  Certainly  to  be  counted  among  them  was 
Eriba  Marduk  (800-760),  son  of  Marduk-shakin-shum,  and 
his  own  father  was  Nabu-shum-ishkun  (760-747),  Eriba  Mar- 
duk’s  immediate  successor,  though  later  scholars  began  with 
him  a  new  dynasty. 

Since  then,  the  family  had  been  in  eclipse,  and  when  Tiglath 
Pileser  received  gifts  from  Merodach  Baladan  in  731,  only  the 
unusual  richness  of  the  objects  presented  differentiated  him 
from  the  other  Aramaean  chiefs.  The  weaker  reign  of  Shal¬ 
maneser  V  permitted  him  to  extend  his  machinations  far  be¬ 
yond  the  limits  of  Iakin  in  the  Sealands  and  to  win  the  confi- 

1  Jer.  5  : 15. 

250 


MERODACH  BALADAN  THE  CHALDEAN 


251 


dence  of  the  citizens  of  Babylon.  With  the  usurpation  of  Sar¬ 
gon,  Merodach  Baladan  struck,  and  Babylon  was  his. 

A  new  era  opened  in  Elam  with  the  accession  of  Humbani- 
gash  I,  son  of  Iiumbandara,  in  742.  During  his  first  years, 
there  was  peace  with  Assyria,  for  the  long  line  of  Aramaean 
buffer  states  protected  Elam  from  her  most  dangerous  neigh¬ 
bour.  These  states  once  reduced  by  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  the 
personal  union  of  Assyria  and  Babylon  became  an  immediate 
danger;  a  right  instinct  assured  Humbanigash  that  it  was  pref¬ 
erable  to  fight  the  battles  of  Elam  on  the  plains  of  Babylonia. 
An  Elamite  army  was  hurried  to  the  aid  of  Merodach  Baladan, 
and  when  the  Assyrians  appeared  they  were  driven  from  the 
field  and  the  near-by  parts  of  Assyria  were  ravaged,  though 
Sargon  still  managed  to  retain  possession  of  Der.  So  long  as 
he  held  it,  he  might  employ  it  as  a  base  for  intrigues  with  the 
anti-Chaldsean  party  or  for  actual  military  operations. 

Twelve  years  passed  quietly  enough  in  Babylon.  Sargon 
attempts  to  win  our  sympathies  by  the  tale  of  how  the  Chal- 
dsean  usurper  imprisoned  the  leading  men  and  confiscated 
their  property,  innocent  of  crime  though  they  were.  Merodach 
Baladan  has  his  story  of  lands  torn  from  their  rightful  masters, 
of  forgotten  boundaries  and  destroyed  boundary  stones, 
when  the  Assyrian  enemy  devastated  the  land  and  there  was 
no  king  in  Babylon.  Peaceable  folk  must  have  suffered  when 
the  alluvium  was  torn  between  the  two  factions. 

A  nephew  of  his  predecessor,  Shutruk  Nahhunte  II,  the  son 
of  Intata,  who  became  king  in  717,  did  not  alter  the  Elamite 
policy.  Shamash-bel-usur,  governor  of  Ahi  Zuhina,  was  erect¬ 
ing  a  temple  in  his  capital  Der  and  complaining  that  there 
were  no  inscriptions  for  its  walls,  when  news  came  that  he  was 
to  prepare  a  campaign  against  the  Elamite  border.  The  king’s 
first  inquiry  was  why  the  equipment  was  not  ready,  and  Sham- 
^sh-bel-usur  had  a  long  tale  of  woe.  When  he  went  to  Urzu- 
hina,  he  saddled  a  mule  and  found  a  stable  for  mules  in  one 
village  of  Mazamua  and  in  another  one  for  asses.  Although,  as 
the  king  knows,  Urzuhina  lies  in  the  woods  and  the  road  from 
thence  to  Arakdi  is  impassable  for  riding  beasts,  yet  he  made 


252 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  trip.  No  one  has  come  with  news  from  the  place  whither 
the  fugitive  officials  have  deserted.  The  king  has  declared :  “  If 
you  seize  the  shatammu  officials,  you  will  do  me  a  favour.7’  The 
liars  of  Arrapha,  a  delicate  allusion  to  Ishtar-duri,  its  governor, 
have  collected  in  the  house  of  the  chamberlain  of  the  palace  and 
have  set  themselves  up  in  it.  Now  he  has  brought  them  to¬ 
gether,  he  protects  them.  Could  Shamash-bel-usur  but  seize 
them,  he  would  bring  them  to  the  king’s  presence.  The  youths 
have  revolted  against  their  lords,  he  will  immediately  send  their 
names  and  bring  them  before  the  king.  Let  them  be  col¬ 
lected  and  judged,  quickly  the  troops  will  tramp  them  down. 
The  king  should  know  he  is  bringing  in  the  fodder  from  the 
storehouse,  the  ship  will  not  carry  it.  The  king  has  asked 
news  of  the  king  of  Elam;  on  the  11th  of  July  he  went  to  Bit 
Bunaki,  on  the  13th  he  went  out  to  the  mountain,  and  he  is 
fortifying  the  strongholds.1 

The  army  of  Shamash-bel-usur  proceeded  from  Der  to  the 
outposts  which  Shutruk  Nahhunte  had  fortified  against  Iatbur, 
the  stretch  of  level  land  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains,  took 
towns  in  Rashi,  and  drove  their  inhabitants  into  Bit  Imbi. 
A  second  army  cut  in  between  Elam  and  Babylon  and  reduced 
the  swamp  tribes  preliminary  to  attack  on  the  home  territory 
of  Merodach  Baladan.  The  fort  of  Dur  Athara  commanded 
the  direct  route  from  Babylon  to  Susa.  Its  walls  were  raised, 
a  canal  drawn  about  it,  but  it  was  taken  before  nightfall,  and 
as  Dur  Nabu  became  the  chief  city  of  the  new  province  of  Gam- 
bulu. 

In  the  marshes  of  the  lower  Uknu,  the  tribes  dwelt  in  reed 
huts  among  the  reed  beds;  a  cash  contribution  was  imposed 
over  and  above  the  tax  of  one  out  of  twenty  from  their  flocks. 
The  Tupliash  was  dammed  and  guarded  by  two  strongholds, 
but  their  surrender  was  forced  by  starvation.  Their  land  was 
made  a  part  of  the  Gambulu  province  and  their  future  loyalty 
secured  by  hostages.  Of  the  fate  of  one,  Nabu-zer-ibni,  chief 
of  the  Rua,  we  learn  from  a  letter  of  Ishtar-duri.  He  had 
been  exiled  to  far-away  Damascus,  but  was  brought  back  by 

1  H.  157;  408;  537;  802;  799. 


MERODACH  BALADAN  THE  CHALDEAN 


253 


the  king’s  order  and  was  now  in  Abdudi  under  charge  of  Bel- 
duri.  All  his  brothers  have  been  brought  to  confer  with  him. 
Attempt  has  been  made  to  persuade  them  to  flee,  but  they 
have  refused,  and  express  regret  that  he  had  not  come  before. 
They  will  bring  about  the  defeat  of  Merodach  Baladan.1 

Proclamation  is  made  to  the  citizens  of  Babylon.  They 
are  begged  to  speak  with  their  brethren.  Truly  Babylon  is 
in  fear  of  slaughter.  Let  them  remember  their  words  and  speak 
to  their  brethren:  “The  city  we  shall  rescue  from  the  hands  of 
the  foe,  there  will  be  no  destruction.”  If  they  speak  good 
words,  speak  good  words  to  them;  if  words  of  evil,  then  words 
of  evil  with  them  speak.2 

Merodach  Baladan  is  in  Babylon.  Nabu-hamatua  went 
with  his  army  to  the  Litamu  and  then  to  the  cities  of  the  Dak- 
kuru.  The  report  which  has  come  from  them  is  not  good. 
When  they  entered  Babylon,  so  it  is  said,  they  slaughtered 
each  other.  The  ship  of  the  governor  of  Ashur,  Tab-sil-esharra, 
is  stationed  at  Bab  Bitqa  and  is  being  used  by  the  abarakku 
to  bring  down  silver,  the  ship  of  the  governor  of  Arrapha  is 
ferrying  at  Opis  and  bringing  across  oil,  straw,  and  fodder. 
He  suggests  an  exchange  of  places,  especially  as  the  men  in  the 
service  of  the  Arrapha  governor  are  already  ferrying  at  Bab 
Bitqa.  Tab-shar  Ashur,  the  architect,  has  written  from  the 
palace:  “Let  them  pass  the  rivers,  let  them  go  to  Birtu,  let 
them  make  a  ferry.”  Arbailai,  the  third  mounted  messenger, 
has  arrived  with  the  news  that  the  Tigris  has  risen  so  high  that 
he  could  not  bring  the  stallions.  Let  them  make  a  bridge  there 
and  pitch  camp  on  the  ground  seen  by  Arbailai.  To-morrow, 
let  them  settle  their  pastures,  let  them  bring  over  their  camp 
until  it  is  complete.  To-morrow,  the  bridge  will  be  finished 
and  the  king  can  pass  over. 

The  king  has  advised  Tab-sil-esharra  that  the  commander- 
in-chief  is  going  to  Kar  Shamash,  and  the  governor  of  Ashur 
inquires  the  reason,  since  the  governor  of  Arrapha  is  doing 
very  well,  and  he  himself  needs  him.  The  Ituai  of  the  governor 
of  Arrapha  are  available;  a  hundred  are  in  Sipte,  let  fifty  go 
1 H.  158.  2  H.  571. 


254 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


with  their  commander  and  remain  with  the  carpenters  as  guard 
until  his  return.  Then  we  find  that  the  Ituai  have  crossed  the 
river  and  keep  watch  in  Sinni.  Haldi-usur,  the  charioteer, 
whose  name  shows  his  Haldian  ancestry,  has  sent  a  letter  about 
Birtu;  he  has  come  with  a  letter  to  be  forwarded  to  the  king. 
Twelve  days  he  was  held  back,  now  Marduk-shum-iddina  has 
come  to  his  side.1 

Passing  down  the  west  bank  of  the  Tigris,  Sargon  found  his 
first  enemy  in  Dakkuru.  Complaint  came  in  from  the  officials 
in  the  neighborhood,  for  the  king  had  not  hearkened  to  their 
many  former  words.  All  the  minor  officials  of  Dakkuru  turned 
to  Merodach  Baladan  with  one  voice  and  sent  the  qadu  officer 
Nabu-li  to  him.  He  brought  back  with  him  to  Bab  Bitqa  the 
shaku  and  the  troops  of  Iakin.  The  shaku  and  the  swordsmen 
of  the  Dakkuru,  the  Aramaeans  and  the  infantry  of  Dakkuru 
turned  to  him,  the  prefects  feared  and  were  silent,  wailing  they 
heard,  to  the  rear  they  retreated.  The  troops  that  were  for¬ 
merly  with  them  did  not  put  their  booty  in  order.  They  made 
strong  their  cities  and  the  king  did  not  await  them.  The 
troops  should  have  gone  to  Bab  Bitqa,  but  up  to  now  they 
have  not  set  forth.  Let  him  take  a  message  from  the  king  to 
the  shaku  and  to  Ana  Nabu-taklak  as  follows:  “When  I  heard 
of  Merodach  Baladan,  the  canal  of  the  sealand  I  closed,  and 
Hamani,  son  of  Iashumu,  with  his  clan  and  his  Aramaeans,  in 
the  midst  I  settled.  Now  I  send  you  his  troops,  let  Shaini  and 
the  Sealanders  who  are  with  you  go  into  the  Sealands.”  The 
king  has  declared  that  the  land  of  Rabiti  has  returned  and 
that  he  has  cut  off  mighty  forts,  but  they  reply:  “The  land  of  • 
Akkad  is  not  in  thy  hands/7  2 

The  position  of  Merodach  Baladan  was  fast  becoming  un¬ 
tenable.  Sargon  portrays  with  deep  feeling  the  scene  when  he 
learned  that  he  had  been  betrayed  by  Elam,  how  he  threw 
himself  on  the  ground,  tore  his  clothes,  and  filled  the  air  with 
his  loud  lamentations.  The  king  of  Elam  had  his  own  troubles 
and  could  not  come;  shut  off  from  his  ally,  Merodach  Baladan 
could  only  fall  back  along  the  Tigris. 

1  H.  436;  89;  100;  95;  482;  396. 


2  H.  542. 


MERODACH  BALADAN  THE  CHALDEAN 


255 


In  long  procession,  the  citizens  of  Babylon  and  Borsippa, 
magistrates,  trade  guilds,  artisans,  carried  to  Sargon  in  his 
camp  of  Dur  Ladina  the  greeting  of  their  local  deities.  The 
pious  monarch  graciously  received  the  envoys.  New  Year’s 
Day  was  approaching,  when  some  one  must  seize  the  hands  of 
Bel.  Sargon  determined  to  follow  the  example  of  his  imme¬ 
diate  predecessors.  The  old  canal  to  Borsippa  was  restored 
and  again  served  as  festival  road  on  which  Nabu  might  travel 
to  greet  his  father  and  lord.  On  the  auspicious  first  of  the 
new  year,  Sargon  was  recognized  by  the  lord  Marduk  as  King 
of  Babylon. 

The  priests,  at  least,  had  no  complaint  of  the  new  order  of 
affairs.  In  three  years,  Sargon  gave  the  Babylonian  gods  over 
a  hundred  and  fifty  talents  of  gold  and  sixteen  hundred  of  sil¬ 
ver,  not  to  speak  of  the  bronze,  iron,  stone,  and  clothing.  He 
caused  burnt  bricks  to  be  struck,  he  built  a  fortress  with  tar 
and  asphalt,  on  the  side  of  the  Ishtar  Gate,  to  the  bank  of  the 
Euphrates  in  the  depth  of  the  water,  and  he  founded  Imgur 
Bel  and  Nimitti  Bel,  mountain  high,  firm  upon  it.  Bits  of 
this  old  double  wall  still  survive,  the  earliest  existing  portions 
of  this  famous  group  of  city  defences. 

One  of  the  helper  tribes  of  Merodach  Baladan,  the  Hamranu, 
had  retreated  into  Sippar.  An  Assyrian  force  was  detached 
from  the  main  army  and  sent  under  the  qepu  of  Birtu,  Nabu- 
bel-shumate,  of  whom  the  governor  of  Ashur  has  this  to  re¬ 
port:  On  the  7th  he  arrived  at  Ashur,  and  when  Tab-sil-esharra 
inquired  “Why  have  you  come  here?”  he  replied,  “A  com¬ 
mand  came  to  me  from  the  king :  1  The  qepus,  all  of  them,  have 
come,  before  my  face  they  appear;  you  did  not  come  at  the 
same  time.  Why  is  all  the  land  of  the  Uppai  plundered,  who 
has  plundered  Sippar?  Why  have  you  gone  out  with  your 
servants  and  carried  off  the  booty?’  So,”  says  Nabu-bel-shu- 
mate,  “on  account  of  this  matter  I  was  disturbed  and  have 
come.”  1 

Sargon  was  ready  to  come  to  grips  with  his  foe  in  May. 
Merodach  Baladan  fell  back  before  his  advance  to  Dur  Iakin, 


1 H.  88. 


256 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


his  ancestral  home,  in  the  marshes  of  the  “ Bitter  River”  at 
the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  where  he  prepared  to  make  his 
last  stand.  The  nomad  troops  were  collected,  earthworks 
thrown  up  outside  the  walls,  the  whole  encircled  by  a  canal 
from  the  Euphrates.  The  bridges  were  torn  down  and  the 
dam  broken  to  make  the  country  a  morass. 

Like  eagles,  the  Assyrians  crossed  the  stream  and  advanced 
to  the  attack.  The  nomads  were  forced  back  and  a  hand-to- 
hand  struggle  followed  under  the  walls.  Merodach  Baladan 
was  wounded  in  the  arm,  but  his  troops  resisted  to  the  last  and 
'  were  slaughtered  before  the  gate.  Rich  booty  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  conquerors,  including  the  royal  furniture  and 
plate.  Three  days  the  city  was  given  over  to  sack,  then  it  was 
burned,  its  towers  thrown  down,  its  very  foundations  torn  up, 
and  the  place  given  over  to  utter  ruin.  Withal,  the  prime 
object  of  the  expedition  was  unattained;  Merodach  Baladan 
escaped  to  a  refuge  in  the  swamps  of  the  extreme  south. 

Settlement  of  affairs  in  south  Babylonia  was  taken  up  in 
earnest.  The  political  prisoners  from  Babylon,  Borsippa, 
Sippar,  and  Nippur  were  freed  from  their  confinement  in  Dur 
Iakin  and  were  restored  to  their  houses  and  lands.  The  cap¬ 
tive  gods  were  likewise  returned  to  their  cities  and  new  edi¬ 
fices  were  erected  in  their  honour.  Captives  from  Qummuh 
were  settled  along  the  whole  Elamite  border;  the  change  from 
the  cool  bracing  highland  to  the  fever-laden  swamps,  we  fear, 
must  have  been  fatal  to  the  majority. 

While  Sargon  was  in  Babylonia  he  received  gifts  from  Uperi 
of  Dilmun,  which  lay  a  distance  of  thirty  double  hours,  like  a 
fish  in  the  midst  of  the  sea;  Dilmun,  already  known  in  one  of 
the  earliest  Shumerian  myths  of  beginnings,  is  the  chief  of  the 
Bahrein  Islands,  whose  almost  unparalleled  heat  is  compen¬ 
sated  by  the  pearls  which  are  recovered  from  the  shallow 
waters  over  the  coral  reefs.  No  reference  has  been  found  to 
Uperi,  but  the  inscription  which  marked  the  palace  of  Rimum, 
servant  of  the  god  Enzag,  is  known. 

In  the  centre  of  the  island  are  some  thousands  of  mounds, 
with  encircling  walls  and  reaching  to  the  height  of  forty  feet. 


MERODACH  BALADAN  THE  CHALDEAN 


257 


A  stoned  passageway  leads  to  the  tomb  made  of  two  rooms, 
one  above  the  other.  Huge  stones  cover  the  roof  and  equally 
huge  stones  close  the  entrance.  Worthy  of  special  notice  is 
the  great  use  of  ivory,  pendants,  statuettes,  the  bull  hoof  of  a 
chair.  Ostrich  shells  were  coloured  and  scratched  with  rough 
banded  copper.  Bones  of  a  horse  speak  for  some  sort  of  sac¬ 
rifice.  The  lower  chamber  had  its  walls  covered  with  cement, 
and  poles  and  drapery  were  used  to  shroud  the  dead.1 

1  Bent,  Proc.  Royal  Geographical  Society ,  N.  S.,  XII,  1  ff.;  JRAS.,  1880,  192. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
LETTERS  FROM  THE  ARMENIAN  FRONT 


A  crisis  of  an  unusually  serious  character  called  Sargon 
from  Babylon  in  707.  The  death  of  Rusash  had  brought  no 
peace  with  Haldia;  rather,  it  had  produced  in  his  son  Argishtish 
a  younger  ruler,  who  was  untried  in  war  and  anxious  for  the 
trial.  The  opportune  moment  seemed  to  have  arrived  in  712. 
Sargon  was  in  Babylonia  with  his  best  troops  and  the  northern 
frontier  was  denuded  of  soldiers,  for  of  those  who  had  not 
accompanied  their  monarch  to  the  south  many  were  engaged 
in  the  construction  of  Dur  Sharrukin.  Assyria  was  adminis¬ 
tered  by  an  untried  crown  prince,  Sennacherib,  who  had  taken 
up  his  post  at  Kalhu,  whence  he  made  frequent  report  to  his 
father. 

As  part  of  his  duty  he  was  intrusted  with  the  various  hos¬ 
tages  and  ambassadors  who  came  from  the  subject  peoples. 
Certain  Sidonians  seem  to  have  been  inclined  to  ignore  him,  for 
they  made  him  no  report  and  did  not  even  take  their  place  in 
the  watch  of  Nineveh,  but,  as  Nabu-eriba  informs  the  king, 
they  wandered  about  the  streets  of  the  city  and  abode  each  in 
the  dwelling  of  his  desire.  The  chiefs  of  Qummuh  were  more 
respectful  to  the  crown  prince,  but  they  too  evidently  thought 
they  could  do  better  by  coming  to  Babylon  to  behold  the  king, 
although  Sennacherib  did  not  see  the  matter  in  the  same  light.1 

Kalhu  was  far  from  an  ideal  station  for  the  crown  prince. 
It  was  distant  from  the  seat  of  operations,  and  reports  must 
be  relayed  from  governor  to  governor,  then  to  Sennacherib, 
and  finally  to  Sargon  in  Babylonia.  Such  a  condition  was 
hardly  conducive  to  efficiency  in  operation,  but  it  has  pre¬ 
served  to  us  a  mass  of  authentic  records  which  compensate 
for  the  complete  omission  of  the  events  in  the  official  histories. 

Our  first  letters  date  from  the  winter  of  710-709.  Argish¬ 
tish  had  already  summoned  his  dependents  to  his  new  capital 

1  H.  175;  196. 

258 


LETTERS  FROM  THE  ARMENIAN  FRONT  259 


at  Argishtihina,  which  lay  on  the  north  side  of  the  Lake  of 
Van  and  might  therefore  be  supposed  out  of  sight  of  the  As¬ 
syrians.  Fortunately,  Sargon  had  a  good  intelligence  service 
and  rumours  soon  began  to  come  in.  Ashur-risua,  former 
head  scribe  of  the  harem,  was  at  present  in  charge  of  the 
Tille  region.  His  chief  activity  had  hitherto  been  the  cutting 
of  beams  for  Dur  Sharrukin.  Sha  Ashur-dubbu,  governor  of 
Tushhan,  farther  west,  was  also  engaged  in  timbering,  and  the 
majority  of  his  men  were  busied  at  Dur  Sharrukin.  Upahhir 
Bel,  governor  of  Amedi,  had  scattered  his  men  inspecting 
beams.  Tab-sil  Ashur  was  with  Kisir  Ashur  above  the  Zanani 
River  and  was  likewise  engaged  in  logging.1 

Threats  of  the  coming  trouble  were  frequent.  Ishtar-shum- 
iqisha  writes  that  the  chiefs  of  Zikirtu  have  just  been  in  con¬ 
ference  with  him.  They  have  reported  that  the  Urartians 
have  come  against  their  land  and  carried  off  spoil,  and  are 
about  to  advance  against  the  Assyrians  themselves.  Alarmed 
by  this  news,  he  has  taken  the  silver  and  has  deposited  it  in 
the  stronger  protection  of  the  forts,  while  he  is  sending  the 
horses  away  to  a  safer  region.  He  urgently  advises  that  it  be 
placed  between  the  eyes  of  the  chiefs,  that  is,  that  it  be  made 
perfectly  clear  to  them,  for  they  have  spoken  rebelliously,  say¬ 
ing:  “We  have  not  heard  concerning  the  governor.”  Let  the 
king  ask  the  deputy  chief,  for  he  was  present  when  the  report 
was  given  to  the  turtanu.2 

Nabu-usalli  sends  in  word  that  three  nobles  of  Kumai 
have  come  to  him  and  are  with  the  guardsman  Mar  Ishtar. 
They  demand  that  they  be  taken  direct  to  the  king  as  he  has 
ordered,  for  only  to  him  in  person  will  they  declare  the  matter 
of  the  foreign  land.  They  will  say  nothing  to  the  guardsman, 
for  they  have  spoken  to  the  governor  and  the  guardsman  and 
neither  will  pay  any  attention  to  them  or  bring  them  into  the 
palace.3 

Ashur-risua  was  ordered  to  send  spies  to  Turushpa  (Tush- 
pash),  still  the  most  important  city  in  Haldia  and  the  centre 
from  which  raiding  armies  set  forth.  He  has  learned  that  the 
1  H.  490;  138;  705;  424;  732;  485.  2  H .  205.  3  //.  206. 


260 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


king  of  Urartu  has  entered  Turushpa  and  has  shut  them  up. 
The  remaining  people  who  went  with  him,  officers  and  men  to 
the  number  of  a  hundred,  have  been  killed.  Ursine  has  been 
captured  in  Turushpa,  and  his  brother,  Apli-uqnu,  went  to  the 
same  city.  When  they  did  not  come  near  him,  he  fell  upon 
them.  Another  missing  official  was  Isaiae;  after  investigation 
Ashur-risua  can  only  reply  to  the  king’s  inquiry  that  no  one 
could  tell  whether  he  was  dead  or  alive.  The  near  approach 
of  the  Haldians  naturally  led  to  disaffection  among  the  soldiers 
of  Sargon,  many  of  whom  had  seen  their  homes  destroyed  and 
their  relatives  killed  by  the  orders  of  the  man  who  now  forced 
them  to  fight  under  his  standards.  Narage,  a  captain,  plotted 
revolt,  and  twenty  of  his  men  followed  him,  but  Ashur-risua 
detected  it  in  time  and  the  rebels  were  seized.1 

Another  example  of  disaffection  may  be  seen  in  a  letter  from 
Sha  Ashur-dubbu,  governor  of  Tushhan.  He  had  sent  two 
of  his  captives,  two  of  his  underofficers,  and  six  men,  seal  in 
hand  for  authentication,  in  pursuit  of  deserters.  While  on  the 
road  they  paused  at  the  Haldian  border  to  eat  of  the  supplies 
they  brought  with  them  and  were  joined  by  the  brother  of  a 
certain  Shuprian,  who  partook  of  their  food.  This  was  the 
most  treacherous  misuse  of  the  laws  of  hospitality,  for  while 
they  were  off  their  guard,  they  fell  into  an  ambush  set  by 
the  Shuprian  himself.  The  subalterns  and  privates  escaped 
the  snare  and  rescued  the  captains.  Ashur-risua  has  sent 
them  word  to  establish  a  military  post  on  the  spot;  he  will  in¬ 
vestigate  and  if  they  are  still  in  his  territory,  he  will  lay  hands 
on  those  highwaymen.  He  has  already  occupied  the  fortress 
of  the  Shuprian,  but  a  good  part  of  his  troops  has  been  with¬ 
drawn  to  assist  in  the  building  of  Dur  Sharrukin,  and  the 
cavalry  alone  are  at  his  immediate  disposal.  Let  the  king 
send  order  that  the  royal  Taziru  and  Ituai  should  come  and 
guard  the  timbers  which  are  already  prepared,  while  he  is 
away  from  headquarters.  Following  the  royal  instructions,  he 
has  assembled  people  and  a  hundred  men  have  been  released 
to  bring  by  the  river  the  five  hundred  logs  freshly  cut  by  the 

1  H.  148;  144. 


LETTERS  FROM  THE  ARMENIAN  FRONT 


261 


Urartian,  the  remainder  according  to  their  watch  he  has  made 
stay  in  the  house  of  their  abode,  but  he  fears  an  uprising. 
The  governor  of  Pulu  has  demanded  why  his  brother’s  messen¬ 
ger  has  held  back.1 

A  certain  captain  of  Ashur-dur-pania  was  instructed  to  pro¬ 
ceed  to  the  chief  of  Muturna,  which  was  within  his  assigned 
territory.  Instead  of  carrying  out  his  work  with  his  brethren, 
he  was  fearful,  took  fifteen  of  his  fifty  men,  and  went  off  to 
Urartu.  Meanwhile,  Ashur-dur-pania  had  sent  Ilu-dala  to 
gather  tribute  in  Shupria,  and  now  gave  him  orders:  “This 
captain  of  fifty  of  mine  is  smiting  the  land  and  all  who  enter 
against  him.  Overcome  his  violence,  go,  he  has  retreated  to 
Shupria,  go.”  The  rebel  captain  entered  Marhuha  and  the 
forest  of  Shupria;  Ilu-dala  saw  him  and  the  prisoners  with  him. 
With  a  hundred  shield-bearers  from  Marhuha,  he  went  against 
Ilu-dala  and  attacked  him  on  the  road ;  none  of  the  king’s  men 
were  killed  but  he  himself  was  wounded  and  was  forced  to 
return  to  Marhuha.  He  has  not  yet  been  secured,  though 
they  have  surrendered  the  men  who  claim  the  king’s 
service.2 

He  has  further  to  report  that  on  the  23d  the  chiefs  of  Shupria 
came  to  seek  letters.  The  men  of  the  land  who  were  in  the 
service  of  the  king  three  and  four  times  fled  from  the  service 
and  servitude  of  the  king,  they  have  written  each  other  and 
have  established  condition.  Since  Ashur-dur-pania  and  his 
associates  have  gone  out  for  the  king,  let  him  hear  them  and 
force  the  return  of  the  troops  that  have  fled.  The  king  of 
Urartu  has  received  them,  he  has  given  them  fields,  planta¬ 
tions,  and  houses,  and  among  those  who  have  bowed  down  to 
him  are  the  chiefs  who  came  for  the  letter.  That  letter  of 
theirs  to  the  king  is  not  true,  let  the  king  hear  his  servants. 
Seven  men,  one  and  three  mules,  were  with  the  men  who  came. 
Bag  Teshub  is  sick.  As  to  the  inspectors,  about  whom  the 
king  has  given  orders,  he  has  sent  sixteen  to  the  palace  cham¬ 
berlain.3 

The  king  has  made  inquiry  about  the  priest  of  Penza  and 

1 H.  138;  705.  2  H.  251.  3  H.  252  f. 


262 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


what  the  king  of  Urartu  wrote  him.  He  has  written:  “  Peace 
to  Bag  Teshub;  thou  shalt  not  make  a  treaty,  thou  shalt  not 
receive  him,  I  beseech  you.”  Yet  he  has  sent  the  messenger 
of  Bag  Teshub  with  his  own  messenger  to  Urartu.  Bag  Teshub 
himself  forwards  the  news  of  Urartu,  the  wicked  deeds  he  has 
heard,  the  state  of  Andia,  the  going  into  the  Mannai  land,  and 
the  setting  up  of  control  in  the  land  of  Zikirtu.1 

News  secured  from  the  spies  sent  into  Haldia  was  forwarded 
by  Upahhir  Bel  from  Amedi.  The  governor  of  the  Haldian 
district  opposite  is  in  Harda,  under  the  very  tip  of  the  barrier 
range.  Opposite  the  territory  held  by  the  messenger,  they 
keep  watch  from  city  to  city,  as  far  as  Turushpa  garrisons  are 
established.  No  immediate  attack  need  be  feared,  for  an  in¬ 
tercepted  letter  from  Argishtish  to  the  governor  of  Harda  or¬ 
dered:  “As  to  the  work  for  which  I  furnished  instruction,  do 
not  do  it  ;  feed  the  horses  until  I  send  the  messenger.”  Sargon 
had  ordered  that  the  Ituai  should  hold  their  land  by  the  bow 
tenure,  their  straw  and  barley  should  be  tax  free,  they  should 
be  counted  as  fields  belonging  to  true  Assyrians.  Upahhir  Bel 
withdrew  them  from  inspecting  timbers  and  sent  them  to  fight 
under  the  charge  of  the  local  chief.  His  lieutenant  and  nine 
of  his  men  were  wounded  by  the  bow,  while  the  enemy  suf¬ 
fered  a  loss  of  two  dead  and  three  wounded.  The  palace  Ituai 
have  come  back  from  the  Euphrates  with  his  messenger,  and 
have  been  sent  out  again  with  one  or  two  “houses.”  Let  the 
king  send  against  the  princes,  let  them  keep  watch  in  Shuruba, 
so  that  by  harvest  they  may  be  conquered.  He  informs  the 
crown  prince  that  he  has  ordered  out  a  certain  governor,  tell¬ 
ing  him:  “We  are  your  protection,  for  your  part  seize  the 
fortresses.”  His  collected  troops  are  with  him  and  he  keeps 
watch  in  Harda.2 

Gabbu-ana  Ashur  entered  his  province  of  Kurban  the  16th 
of  July.  The  20th  of  the  next  month,  he  informs  the  king  that 
he  was  about  to  send  a  record  of  the  men  to  be  requisitioned 
to  the  other  governors,  Nabu-li,  Ashur-bel-dan,  and  Ashur- 
risua.  Nothing  has  been  neglected;  the  task  has  been  exe- 
1  H.  139;  215.  2  H.  201;  424;  548. 


LETTERS  FROM  THE  ARMENIAN  FRONT  263 


cuted  in  every  particular;  nothing  has  been  omitted.  The  lat¬ 
est  news  is  that  the  Urartians  have  not  yet  left  Turushpa. 
The  king  has  promised  him  that  the  men  who  belonged  to 
Arzai  shall  be  in  his  charge,  in  so  far  as  they  are  listed  in  the 
appropriate  tablet.  They  have  all  fled  and  come  over  to  the 
side  of  the  king.  He  has  sent  all  his  chopped  straw  to  Dur 
Sharrukin,  and  now  there  is  not  enough  for  two  soldiers.  As 
for  the  reeds,  though  they  are  plentiful,  whenever  the  guard 
sees  a  prospect  of  booty,  he  neglects  the  feasts.1 

While  Argishtish  remained  in  Turushpa,  carrying  on  his  sac¬ 
rifices  and  with  his  governors  all  around  him,  the  Mannai  in 
the  Haldian  cities  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Urumia  revolted  and 
Ashur-risua  sent  Ana-luqunu,  governor  of  Musasir,  and  Tun- 
naun,  governor  of  Karsitu,  to  their  border  to  garrison  the 
revolted  cities.  Ten  governors  are  co-operating  with  Ashur- 
risua.  The  messenger  of  the  Ukkai  went  up  to  the  land  of 
Urartu,  he  came  down  to  Assyria,  and  now  is  in  Musasir. 
“ These  statements  are  truly  so,”  he  urges  the  abarakku,  “and 
whatsoever  there  is  in  this  letter  to  the  palace  I  shall  send  it. 
These  are  trustworthy  reports  which  I  send  to  my  lord.”  2 

The  year’s  events  had  been  most  favourable  to  Haldia. 
Mutallu  of  Qummuh  had  been  drawn  away.  Although  the 
Haldian  king  had  failed  to  move  from  his  capital,  his  troops 
had  secured  important  accessions  and  disaffection  was  wide¬ 
spread.  The  operations  of  708  were  no  more  calculated  to 
restore  confidence.  At  the  beginning  of  April,  Argishtish 
moved  out  at  last.  His  turtanu,  Qaqqadanu,  in  charge  of  the 
border  opposite  the  Ukkai,  went  with  four  other  generals  to 
Uesi,  whence  they  were  preparing  to  invade  territory  actually 
within  the  Assyrian  limits.  Meanwhile,  Argishtish  was  col¬ 
lecting  other  armies.  Their  troops  were  already  in  garrison.3 

A  letter  from  Ashur-risua  was  received  by  Tab-sil-esharra; 
it  arrived  at  Ashur  on  the  6th  at  evening  and  immediately  he 
forwarded  the  news  to  the  king.  The  Ukkai  messenger  has 
gone  to  Urartu,  the  Ukkai  themselves  have  taken  the  oath  to 
Arne.  His  city  has  come  over  to  him,  and  proclaims  the  tablet 

1  H.  121  ff.  2  H.  381;  619;  145.  3  H.  492;  444. 


264 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  the  Ukkai  at  the  entrance  of  the  cities  of  Kumai  and  Eliski. 
The  Ukkai  have  come  and  are  settled  in  it.  Tab-sil-esharra 
has  levied  troops,  but  he  has  not  yet  learned  where  they  are 
needed.  Ashur-risua  replies  that  Are  and  Arisa  have  directed 
their  weapons  against  him,  but  have  not  yet  set  their  troops 
in  motion;  when  they  begin,  he  will  be  warned  by  his  messen¬ 
gers.  Let  his  correspondent  send  the  Ituai  of  Dur  Shamash 
and  the  men  of  Parza  Nish  tun,  let  these  be  the  ones  to  go  up, 
let  them  be  set  free.  As  to  the  fifty  soldiers  offered  from  the 
city  of  Ishtar-duri,  let  them  be  ordered  to  Shulmu-bel-lashme.1 

Sennacherib  sends  a  long  despatch  to  his  father,  quoting  the 
pertinent  portions  of  several  letters  addressed  to  himself. 
Ariae  repeats  the  orders  of  the  Urartian  king  to  his  governors : 
“With  the  troops  in  your  hands  seize  the  governors  of  the 
Assyrian  king  in  Kumai  and  drag  them  before  me.”  They 
have  not  yet  succeeded  in  cutting  them  off,  but  Ariae  is  very 
anxious  and  begs  that  troops  be  quickly  forwarded.  On  the 
11th  of  September  came  a  letter  from  Ashur-risua.  When  the 
men  of  Zikirtu  brought  gifts  to  the  king  of  Urartu,  they  re¬ 
ceived  nothing  in  return,  but  went  back  empty.  Now  he  is 
in  Uesi,  at  the  exit  from  Haldia.  The  Mannai  have  come  but 
they  brought  no  definite  information.  The  governor  he  ap¬ 
pointed  is  not  in  Uesi  and  the  Haldian  king  has  been  driven 
out  of  the  city.  He  avoided  the  main  roads  and  they  have 
repaired  the  bridges.  The  men  of  Arzapia  have  requested 
Sennacherib  to  withdraw  the  Ukkai  from  before  them,  asking: 
“Why  should  he  slay  me?  I  call  upon  you  for  aid.”  Sen¬ 
nacherib  despatched  his  own  body-guard  against  the  Ukkai,  but 
they  and  the  Mannai  have  sent  messengers  to  Kalhu.2 

News  of  Urartu  is  also  sent  by  Bel-iddina.  Messengers  from 
Andia  and  Zikirtu  have  entered  Uesi;  they  have  reported  to 
the  Haldian  king  that  the  land  of  Assyria  is  opposed  to  them. 
He  has  gone  against  them  in  Zikirtu  with  his  troops  and  with 
the  Hubushkians  in  five  divisions.  He  has  also  inquired  of 
his  nobles  as  to  whether  their  troops  are  prepared.3 

Before  the  winter  closed  in,  while  Argishtish  was  still  in  Uesi, 

1  H.  101;  147.  2  H.  198.  3  H.  515. 


LETTERS  FROM  THE  ARMENIAN  FRONT 


265 


he  had  ordered  against  Musasir  a  body  of  three  thousand  foot- 
soldiers,  accompanied  by  baggage  camels,  under  Setinu,  the 
governor  who  had  been  located  opposite  Ashur-risua.  They 
crossed  the  Salmat  River  and  joined  with  Suna,  the  governor, 
opposite  the  Ukkai.  Upon  this,  the  Assyrian  chamberlain 
wrote  to  Urzana,  who  had  regained  his  throne  in  Musasir  since 
Sargon  had  invaded  his  fastnesses,  and  asked  him  whether  the 
king  of  Urartu  had  moved  with  his  troops,  and  if  so,  where  he 


Fig.  105.  SEAL  OF  URZANA,  KING  OF  MUSASIR. 

was  staying.  Urzana  replies  with  a  missive  which  can  only 
be  called  impudent.  For  salutation,  he  barely  condescends  to 
give  a  perfunctory  “ Peace  to  thee.”  To  the  question  as  to 
whether  Argishtish  had  retired  with  his  army,  he  answers  with 
the  one  word  “Gone.”  “Where  is  he  staying?”  The  gov¬ 
ernors  of  Uesi  and  the  Ukkai  came  to  Musasir  to  sacrifice  in 
the  Haldia  temple  and  they  say  that  the  king  has  gone  off  and 
is  staying  in  Uesi.  As  for  himself,  the  governors  have  met, 
they  have  come,  they  have  offered  sacrifices  in  Musasir,  and 
Urzana  implies  that  this  is  the  end  of  the  matter  as  far  as  he 
is  concerned.  As  to  the  chamberlain’s  order,  “Without  per¬ 
mission  of  the  king  of  Assyria  let  no  man  put  his  hand  to  the 
temple  ceremonies,”  Urzana  flippantly  replies:  “When  the  king 
of  Assyria  comes,  should  I  be  hostile  to  him?  What  I  have 
always  done,  that  shall  I  do;  as  to  that,  how  should  I  be  hos¬ 
tile  ?  ”  In  other  words,  the  king  of  Assyria  has  always  acknowl- 


266 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


edged  the  autonomy  of  Musasir,  and  in  this  status  its  king  will 
remain,  neutral  between  the  warring  parties.1 

To  Sargon  he  was  less  belligerent.  The  king  knows  from  the 
reports  that  there  are  no  cattle  or  sheep.  He  has  seized  the 
roads  in  the  reed  thickets  and  is  awaiting  patiently  the  ex¬ 
pected  Assyrian  support,  but  no  one  comes.  He  cannot  ap¬ 
pear  before  the  king,  but  those  who  fled  from  him  are  there, 
so  that  he  is  in  the  enemy  land.  The  pious  hope  that  the  gods 
will  conquer  Sargon’s  enemies  and  establish  his  dominion  over 
the  lands  closes  the  letter.  Sennacherib,  at  least,  knew  better, 
for  the  frontier  garrisons  had  sent  him  the  information  that 
Urzana,  his  brother,  and  his  son,  had  all  gone  to  the  Haldian 
king  to  seek  his  peace.  Shulmu  Bel  locates  him  at  Alammu; 
this  was  half-way  between  Uesi  and  Nineveh,  and  on  the  direct 
road,  a  position  threatening  to  Assyria.2 

Barely  had  the  spring  campaign  of  707  begun  when  Argish- 
tish  was  suddenly  called  north  by  a  terrible  danger  which  now 
began  to  threaten  the  civilised  countries  of  western  Asia.  An¬ 
other  branch  of  that  Iranian  race  which  already  so  hardly 
pressed  the  eastern  border  of  Assyria  had  poured  across  the 
Caucasus.  Striking  out  from  their  “  Cimmerian  darkness,” 
the  Gimirrai,  as  the  Assyrian  called  them,  struck  the  Haldian 
frontier  obliquely  on  their  way  to  Cappadocia.  Thus  seated, 
they  could  on  the  one  hand  fall  upon  Phrygia  or  the  rising 
power  of  Lydia;  on  the  other,  Assyria  or  Haldia  might  be  at¬ 
tacked.  The  last  felt  the  presence  of  the  barbarians  most 
severely,  and  Argishtish  determined  to  stop  them  before  they 
actually  crossed  his  boundary.  At  first  the  Haldians  enjoyed 
a  certain  success,  and  forced  payment  of  tribute  from  Guriana 
in  the  Tabal  region.3 

The  advantage  did  not  long  remain  on  the  side  of  Argishtish. 
Soon  after  he  entered  the  Cimmerian  land,  in  May,  the  deci¬ 
sive  battle  was  fought.  Ashur-risua,  Nabu-li,  and  the  Ukkai 
reported  the  news  to  Sennacherib,  who  sent  the  abstracts  on 
to  his  father.  Argishtish  fled  from  the  battle-field  to  Uasaun, 
and  thence  to  the  mountains,  where  he  hid  alone;  his  turtanu, 
1  H.  409.  2  H.  768;  197;  891.  3  H.  146. 


LETTERS  FROM  THE  ARMENIAN  FRONT  267 


Qaqqadanu,  was  made  prisoner,  nine  of  his  governors  were 
done  to  death,  and  included  among  them  was  the  governor  of 
Uesi,  the  great  frontier  post.  “A  great  slaughter  has  taken 
place,  now  his  land  is  quiet.”  The  whole  of  Urartu  is  exceed¬ 
ingly  afraid  because  of  the  men  of  the  cities  of  Pulu  and  Suri- 
ana;  they  are  assembling  troops  and  they  say:  “Our  forces  at 
once  become  like  reeds,  shall  we  set  foot  against  him?”  1 

Anxious  to  regain  Assyrian  favour,  Urzana  passed  on  the 
news  to  the  deputy  of  that  same  chamberlain  he  had  not  long 
since  flouted,  and  it  finally  reached  Sargon  through  the  inter¬ 
mediary  of  Ashur-risua  and  Sennacherib.  The  Assyrians  made 
capital  of  the  defeat,  and  we  have  a  rather  sharp  royal  word 
to  Nabu-dur-usur,  without  greetings  or  even  the  statement  of 
the  king’s  peace.  Sargon  has  just  sent  Mannu-ki  Ashur,  the 
guardsman,  to  the  Urartian  leaders,  and  Nabu-dur-usur  is  to 
hand  over  “those  prisoners  who  eat  before  you”  to  the  guard 
who  will  bring  them  to  Urzuhina;  he  is  also  to  write  down  their 
sum  on  a  tablet.  Let  the  women  be  located  in  Arrapha,  let 
them  supply  grain  and  fodder  for  the  beasts  of  burden.2 

Roused  by  the  news,  Sargon  left  Babylon  in  707,  and  the 
next  year,  old  as  he  was,  he  took  the  field  in  Tabal.  His  death 
is  shrouded  in  mystery.  In  705  he  marched  against  Eshpai, 
the  Kullumite,  ruler  of  a  petty  land  near  Elli  on  the  eastern 
Assyrian  border;  his  camp  was  taken,  and  he  himself  met  his 
death.  Such  was  the  obscure  end  of  the  greatest  of  Assyrian 
rulers. 

1  H.  112;  197;  646.  2  H.  1079;  306. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


SARGONSBURG 

S argon’s  annals  follow  Assyrian  forms  and  give  us  military 
history;  his  city  and  his  archives  open  to  view  a  culture  which 
was  as  worthy  of  observation.  Military  reforms  did  indeed 
play  an  important  part  in  his  reign.  The  low  chariot  of  the 
earlier  period  gave  way  to  one  much  higher,  and  carrying  three 
instead  of  two  fighting  men.  Bowmen  appear  first  in  this  reign 
as  the  most  important  element  in  the  infantry.  “  Troops  of 
the  feet,”  the  royal  body-guard  of  cavalry  under  the  leadership 
of  Sin-ahi-usur,  were  more  and  more  used  in  emergencies  in 
place  of  the  provincial  levies,  and  individual  members  were 
often  sent  on  confidential  errands.  The  feudal  levy  of  the 
people  in  arms  had  proved  a  failure,  and  to  Sargon  belongs 
credit  for  frank  recognition  that  a  standing  army  was  de¬ 
manded.  After  a  state  was  brought  to  an  end,  the  usual  pro¬ 
cedure  was  to  enroll  the  forces  of  the  deposed  prince  in  the 
royal  army. 

Provincial  organisation  had  ceased  development  and  became 
fixed;  the  reign  contributes  much  to  our  knowledge  of  the  im¬ 
perial  free  city.  Ashur  was  given  a  charter,  yet  we  find  a  gov¬ 
ernor,  Tab-sil-esharra,  formally  set  over  it.  How  the  new  free¬ 
dom  worked  may  be  perceived  from  a  letter  he  wrote  the  king 
in  answer  to  an  inquiry  about  rebuilding.  Since  the  king 
freed  Ashur,  he  has  been  responsible  for  the  dues.  When  the 
walls  of  the  palace  at  Ekallate  collapsed,  they  were  not  re¬ 
paired  ;  he  would  now  undertake  the  restoration  of  the  breaches. 
Shall  they  summon  the  bought  slaves  or  the  freemen  of  the! 
palace  chief?  He  is  forwarding  the  register  of  the  bought 
slaves  and  of  the  sons  born  to  the  maids  in  the  palace.  Three 
hundred  and  seventy  are  serfs,  subject  to  corvee,  ninety  are 
their  sons,  the  same  number  belong  to  the  side  palace.  Let 

a  hundred  and  ninety  do  the  king’s  labour.  If  a  body-guard 

268 


SARGONSBURG 


269 


or  a  guard  commander  come,  he  will  furnish  these  men  to  them 
that  they  may  perform  the  king’s  work.1 

Even  better  does  Harran  illustrate  Sargon’s  worldly  re¬ 
ligion.  Like  Ashur,  it  was  an  old  capital,  and  like  Ashur  it 
was  granted  a  charter.  Nabu-pashir  seems  to  have  been  Sar¬ 
gon’s  personal  representative,  and  we  have  a  number  of  letters 
from  him.  For  example,  on  the  17th  Sin  went  out  from  the 
city  and  entered  his  New  Year’s  House;  the  royal  offerings 
were  made  in  peace.  When  Sin  re-enters  the  temple  he  will 
dwell  in  peace  and  bless  the  king.  The  treasures  of  Sin  under 
.  seal  are  sixty-six  pounds  of  gold  and  much  silver.  The  king 
has  written  about  the  casting  down  of  the  god’s  emblems; 
there  has  been  destruction,  there  is  no  funeral  pile,  and  no 
putting  out  of  its  burning.  When  they  make  the  funeral  pile 
they  are  troubled;  they  will  make  a  lower  structure.  Sargon’s 
architect,  Tab-shar  Ashur,  discusses  the  divine  symbols  of  Sin 
at  Harran.  At  this  time,  too,  Sargon  presented  Sin  of  Har¬ 
ran  with  a  manorial  estate.  Later  he  changed  his  mind,  took 
it  away,  and  used  it  for  his  own  purposes.  Thereupon,  says  a 
later  king,  Sin  made  the  Assyrians  to  suffer.2 

Industry  was  in  a  bad  way,  and  we  hear  of  decaying  villages, 
of  agricultural  apparatus  out  of  commission,  of  canals  choked 
up  and  unfit  for  use.  All  this  Sargon  tells  us  he  changed.  The 
villages  he  rebuilt,  the  canals  he  opened,  the  waters  he  restored 
were  a  very  real  blessing  to  the  country.  Civilisation  was 
once  more  becoming  complex,  and  the  rise  in  prices  was  accen¬ 
tuated  by  the  large  amount  of  the  precious  metals  brought  in 
by  the  wars.  Sargon,  entirely  ignorant  of  economic  laws,  nat¬ 
urally  assumed  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  living  was  due  to 
conspiracy  on  the  part  of  the  Aramaean  merchants  into  whose 
hands  the  internal  trade  of  the  empire  had  fallen.  One  of  his 
proudest  boasts  is  the  promulgation  of  a  tariff  that  made  the 
necessities  of  life  accessible  to  all — wine  for  the  sick,  incense 
for  joy  of  heart,  oil  for  wounds,  while  sesame  was  to  sell  at  the 
same  price  as  grain.  One  wonders  just  how  much  this  edict 
of  the  benevolent  despot  improved  the  lot  of  the  proletariat. 

2  H.  134;  131  f . ;  701;  489;  Johns,  PSBA.X  XL,  117  ff. 


1  H.  99. 


270 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


First  of  Assyrian  kings,  so  far  as  we  know,  Sargon  began  the 
formation  of  a  library.  Tablets  exist  with  his  library  mark, 
and  others  were  written  in  his  reign.  To  one  scholar  or  patron 
of  scholars,  Nabu-zuqup-kini,  we  can  attribute  several.  The 
great  astronomical  work,  When  Ann,  Enlil,  etc.,  forecasts,  ob¬ 
servations  of  the  moon  and  stars,  prayers,  cult  directions  were 
included,  and  there  began  the  renewed  interest  in  the  legends 
of  the  elder  Sargon.  The  influence  of  all  this  literature  was 
soon  felt,  and  the  official  histories  are  as  far  from  the  dull 
routine  style  of  the  last  Tiglath  Pileser  as  can  be  imagined. 
The  extreme  of  rhetorical  writing  is  reached  by  the  report  of 
the  eighth  campaign,  and  Sargon  so  appreciated  the  artistry  of 
this  effort  that  he  permitted  Nabu-shallimshunu  to  attach  his 
name  to  his  composition. 

Sargon’ s  capital  was  movable.  At  first  he  resided  in  Ashur, 
repaired  the  walls,  paved  the  side  temple,  and  covered  the 
ramp  and  sides  with  glazed  and  pictured  bricks,  azure  blue  in 
ground,  yellow  rosettes  in  circles,  the  centre  a  projecting  and 
pierced  bulb,  blue  with  a  white  ring.  Then  he  moved  to  Kalhu 
and  restored  the  palace  of  Ashur-nasir-apal,  which  later  he 
handed  over  to  the  crown  prince.  The  middle  period  saw 
Sargon  at  Nineveh  and  restoring  a  temple  to  Nabu  and  Marduk. 

Finally,  he  determined  to  found  a  city  which  should  bear 
his  name.  An  appropriate  site  was  found  at  Maganuba,  a 
half-ruined  town  to  the  northeast  of  Nineveh,  at  the  foot  of 
the  barren  Musri  hills.  The  soil  was  largely  clay,  thus  furnish¬ 
ing  a  good  and  cheap  building  material.  The  ground  was  fer¬ 
tile  and  trees  were  then  more  frequent — palms,  olives,  figs,  and 
oranges,  according  to  the  reliefs.  Near  by  were  alabaster 
quarries,  from  which  slabs  for  the  sculptures  might  be  taken. 
The  waters  are  strongly  charged  with  sulphur,  perhaps  an  addi¬ 
tional  advantage  in  the  eyes  of  an  aging  ruler. 

Three  men  had  been  made  a  grant  of  the  land  by  Adad-nirari 
III;  in  return  for  the  desired  site,  Sargon  gave  the  owners 
ninety-five  inters  of  land  in  a  priestly  city  near  Nineveh,  on 
the  same  easy  terms  as  the  original  grant,  ten  imers  of  barley 
to  Ashur  and  Bau,  Those  who  would  not  accept  an  exchange 


Fig.  107.  THE  HILL  OF  OPHEL.  (EARLIEST  JERUSALEM.) 


.. 


»• 


SARGONSBURG 


271 


of  land  were  not  so  fortunate;  they  were  paid  in  cash,  but  at 
the  original  cost  of  the  estates,  the  title-deeds  furnishing  the 
evidence.  In  view  of  the  marked  decrease  in  the  value  of  the 
precious  metals,  this  worked  an  undoubted  hardship;  we  may 
be  sure  the  wise  preferred  to  receive  their  pay  in  land. 

City  and  palace  were  the  work  of  Tab-shar  Ashur,  the  chief 
architect,  who  as  great  abarakku  had  been  eponym  in  717. 
The  city  was  laid  out  in  the  form  of  a  rough  rectangle,  nearly 
two  thousand  yards  on  the  side,  and  was  oriented  with  its  cor¬ 
ners  approximately  to  the  cardinal  points.  Up  to  the  city  led 
a  roughly  paved  road,  forty  feet  wide,  which  was  continued 
within  the  gate  as  a  street  of  the  same  dimensions.  On  one 
side  of  the  roadway  was  a  half-circle  and  a  stele  used  as  a 
mile-stone. 

Around  the  whole  rectangle  was  a  high  wall,  its  base  of  rub- 
blework  between  two  stone  facings,  the  upper  portion  of  un¬ 
baked  bricks.  The  poor  building  material  made  them  of  ne¬ 
cessity  enormously  thick,  over  eighty  feet  in  all.  More  than 
a  hundred  and  fifty  towers  studded  the  walls,  which  were 
pierced  by  eight  gates  bearing  the  names  of  the  eight  great 
Assyrian  deities.  Three  were  used  for  vehicles;  the  others  for¬ 
bade  wheeled  traffic  by  steps  in  their  midst.  Huge  winged 
bulls  with  human  heads  guarded  the  entrance;  above  the  arch 
were  enamelled  bricks,  within  were  slabs  carved  with  the  fig¬ 
ures  bearing  palm  spathes  and  baskets.  Under  each  gate,  on 
a  bed  of  sand,  was  hidden  away  a  large  number  of  cheap 
trinkets,  amulets,  figures  of  menacing  spirits,  and  the  like, 
while  the  roof  was  vaulted  above  with  crude  bricks,  a  piece  of 
work  calling  for  no  small  skill.  Here  the  peasants  would  pass 
in  with  their  produce  or  expose  it  for  sale  in  the  cool  halls,  the 
venders  of  sweetmeats  or  of  snow-cooled  drinks  would  be  on 
hand,  inquisitive  citizens  would  congregate  to  learn  the  news 
from  the  front  or  the  latest  court  gossip.  Here,  too,  were  sol¬ 
diers  on  guard  and  the  judge,  ready  to  expose  the  unfortunate 
captive  to  the  jeers  of  the  idle  mob  or  to  consign  him  to  the 
lightless  prison-hole  sunk  in  the  midst  of  the  wall. 

Construction  had  its  difficulties.  The  king  demanded  of 


272 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Tab-shar  Ashur  why  the  governor  of  Arrapha  had  neglected 
the  half  of  the  gate  assigned  him.  Tab-shar  Ashur  hastened 
to  the  spot  on  the  third  day  and  was  requested  by  the  gover¬ 
nors  of  Kalhu  and  Arrapha  to  arbitrate  their  differences.  If 
the  king  should  ask  the  details,  the  former  is  to  be  under  the 
approach  to  the  “  Great  Gate”  and  thence  to  the  “Rejoicing 
of  the  People.”  The  portion  of  the  other  is  to  be  for  twelve 
hundred  feet,  to  the  foundation  of  the  “Shining  Gate.”  That 
disposes  of  the  wall  to  the  middle  of  the  gate  and  the  remainder 
is  assigned,  three  hands  to  the  governor  of  Arrapha  and  one  to 
him  of  Kalhu  in  co-operation.  He  has  done  this  on  his  own 
initiative,  though  he  has  had  no  direct  orders  from  the  king, 
but  each  of  the  governors  has  accepted  his  arbitration  and  is 
at  work  on  his  appropriate  assignment.1 

Little  has  been  preserved  of  the  city  proper.  Its  long, 
straight  streets  crossed  at  right  angles,  there  were  no  sidewalks, 
but  the  roadway  was  paved.  They  were  lined  with  long,  star¬ 
ing  walls  of  mud  brick,  with  scarcely  a  break  for  window  or 
door;  once  within,  there  was  more  life  in  the  courts,  perhaps 
even  gardens,  but  of  the  town  life,  whether  of  temple  or  of 
bazaar,  we  have  little  trace. 

The  palace  was  the  one  reason  for  the  existence  of  Dur 
Sharrukin  and  the  one  survival  of  importance.  Ships  were 
sorely  needed  for  the  transport  of  the  material  to  be  used. 
Tab-shar  Ashur  is  asked  by  the  king  why  the  necessary  ships 
have  not  been  completed  by  the  beginning  of  the  month,  since 
all  the  months  are  now  ended,  while  the  ships  remain  incom¬ 
plete.  He  has  already  written  the  king  that  three  of  the  ships 
will  be  complete  by  the  1st  of  March,  four  more  like  them  by 
the  1st  of  the  next  month,  and  these  seven  are  already  sheathed. 
On  the  first  day  they  left  the  palace  they  arrived  at  Ubase. 
The  ships  are  safe.  On  the  second  day  they  guarded  the  gods 
of  the  king  and  entered  in  safety.2 

A  whole  group  of  letters  deal  with  the  cutting  of  logs  in  the 
northern  hills,  and  the  governors,  who  were  soon  to  be  engaged 
in  the  Armenian  wars,  are  frequently  led  to  complain  that  all 

2  H.  330;  433. 


1  H.  486. 


Fig.  108.  BRINGING  CEDAR  FROM  THE  LEBANON 


274 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


their  men  are  busy  in  the  forests  cutting  down  trees,  floating 
them  down  the  river,  or  actually  engaged  in  the  construction  of 
Dur  Sharrukin.  Tab-sil-esharra,  for  example,  has  been  ordered 
to  number  and  send  living  logs,  and  the  total  reaches  fifteen 
thousand  two  hundred  sound  logs  and  thirteen  thousand  one 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  which  are  old  or  worm-eaten.  Sha 
Ashur-dubbu  writes  from  Tushhan  that  his  men  are  now  at 
Dur  Sharrukin,  and  asks  that  other  officials  help  him  guard 
his  timber  till  its  removal  thither.1 

Armenia  furnished  the  beams  for  the  main  structure;  for  the 
roofs  Sargon  went  to  the  Lebanons  for  the  sweet-smelling  cedar 
which  tradition  had  long  since  made  the  royal  wood.  Before 
us  the  reliefs  depict  the  sea,  and  beside  its  natural  scaly  deni¬ 
zens  float  winged  bulls,  human-headed  lions,  and  the  sea-god 
Ea,  with  half-fish,  half-human  form.  Ships  with  horsehead 
bows  and  fish-tailed  sterns  skim  about  with  mast  upright  and 
oarsmen  sculling  without  oar-locks,  or  return  with  their  decks 
laden  with  the  heavy  planks  or  dragging  them  in  the  water 
behind.  High  towers  on  a  hill  projecting  into  the  sea  repre¬ 
sent  Old  Tyre,  a  double  wall  of  good  ashlar  marks  the  island 
home  of  the  later  city.  Huge  beams  are  piled  on  the  rocky 
shore  by  labourers  with  skirts  tucked  high,  though  elsewhere 
they  wear  long  dresses  with  tassels,  short-sleeved  overdresses, 
and  laced  boots.  Their  head-dress  is  wound  tight  around  the 
head,  permitting  short  curls  to  escape,  their  very  short  beards 
are  continued  to  their  ears.  Beside  the  timber,  they  present 
cups,  sacks,  or  models  of  their  cities. 

Large  quantities  of  stone  must  be  transported.  Tab-shar 
Ashur  speaks  of  the  bringing  of  stone  colossi  in  six  ships,  or 
replies  to  an  inquiry  as  to  blocks  which  are  to  be  carried  by 
water.  He  complains  of  the  failure  to  furnish  him  with  car¬ 
penters,  potters,  and  workmen.  Gabbu-ana  Ashur  asks  that 
the  three  stone  thresholds  and  the  stone  colossi  of  the  protect¬ 
ing  deities  be  sent  him,  since  his  men  have  no  work  to  do.2 

The  palace  stood  on  a  platform  situated  on  the  line  of  the 
western  city  wall  and  extended  partially  outside.  Erected  in 
1  H.  92;  138.  2  H.  103;  105;  125;  1065. 


j 


Fig.  109.  WINGED  GENIUS.  GLAZED  BRICKS  OF  Fig.  110.  WINGED  GENIUS.  (Louvre.) 

ARCHIVOLT.  (PALACE  OF  SARGON.) 


. 


. 


SARGONSBURG 


275 


imitation  of  Babylonian  models,  it  had  more  practical  justifi¬ 
cation.  It  was  the  most  difficult  part  of  the  city  for  the  en¬ 
emy  to  assail,  and  it  was  a  refuge  from  a  possible  revolt  of  the 
heterogeneous  collection  of  captives  settled  within.  The  huge 
mass  was  not  a  mere  lump  of  earth,  but  was  constructed  of 
carefully  prepared  crude  brick  with  a  well-executed  drainage 
system.  The  pressure  of  this  enormous  body  was  resisted  by 
a  retaining  wall  of  massive,  well-dressed  stone,  some  of  whose 
blocks  weighed  over  twenty  tons  and  were  laid  with  mathe¬ 
matical  accuracy.  On  the  city  side  a  ramp  probably  ascended 
to  the  parapeted  top. 

On  this  elevated  mass  was  a  series  of  buildings,  large  enough 
to  contain  the  population  of  a  fair-sized  town,  with  their  four¬ 
teen  courts  and  eighty-seven  rooms.  There  were  two  main 
entrances,  the  one  which  faced  the  city  in  the  style  of  the  city 
gates,  but  more  elaborate,  the  central  archway  flanked  by  great 
bulls  and  adorned  with  tiling.  This  triple  gateway  was  the 
ancestor  of  the  triumphal  arch.1 

Around  the  largest  of  the  courts  were  storerooms,  each  with 
a  tiny  cell  for  its  keeper.  In  some  were  iron  implements, 
pottery,  or  similar  supplies;  others  contained  foodstuffs  or 
drinkables  preserved  in  jars  whose  pointed  ends  rested  in  sup¬ 
ports.  A  sudden  rain  during  the  excavations  revealed  to  the 
astonished  workmen  wine  more  than  twenty-five  centuries  old. 
Near  by  were  the  kitchens,  where  cooking  was  carried  on  under 
conditions  much  the  same  as  in  the  East  to-day.  Rows  of  jars 
turned  on  one  side  contained  the  fire,  the  bread  was  baked  by 
plastering  the  dough  on  the  outside,  or  the  fire  was  removed 
and  the  meat  sealed  inside,  an  anticipation  of  our  fireless 
cookers. 

Not  far  off  were  the  stables  and  the  open  courts  where  the 
horses  were  hobbled  to  rings  in  the  pavement.  The  keeper  of 
these  royal  stables  under  Sargon  was  Nergal-etir,  who  is  con¬ 
stantly  reporting  the  arrival  of  horses  and  mules  and  their 
general  condition.  Among  them  are  horses  from  Barhalza, 
Arabians;  horses  from  Elli,  whence  came  later  the  famous  Nis- 
1  Breasted,  Proc.  Amer.  Hist.  Assn.,  1914,  I,  107. 


276 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


ssean  breed;  horses  of  Asia  Minor  or  north  Syria,  the  famous 
Cappadocian  stock,  small  but  sturdy;  great  horses  from  Egypt 
or  Ethiopia. 

Entering  through  a  still  more  magnificent  gateway,  one 
found  oneself  in  a  court  somewhat  smaller  than  that  of  the 
servants  and  adorned  in  the  same  style,  but  more  richly.  Vari¬ 
ous  gateways  opening  out  from  it  were  guarded  by  the  human¬ 
headed  bulls,  but  between  them  stood  a  figure  of  the  ancient 
hero,  Gilgamesh,  whom  courtly  belief  held  the  ancestor  of  the 
reigning  monarch.  Clad  in  royal  garments  and  with  hair  and 
beard  elaborately  curled,  in  his  right  hand  he  holds  the  sacred 
boomerang  and  his  left  clutches  a  snarling  lion  to  his  breast. 
Around  the  walls  of  this  main  court  are  the  scenes  representing 
the  king  with  his  chief  officers,  the  securing  of  timber  for  the 
palace  construction,  the  sacred  winged  figures  with  palm  spathe 
and  basket.  A  long  passageway  filled  with  figures  of  tributary 
Phoenicians  and  Medes,  their  chiefs  bearing  models  of  turreted 
cities,  has  on  its  right  rooms  with  reliefs  illustrating  the  famous 
swing  around  the  circle  of  714.  We  cross  the  corner  of  a  still 
smaller  court,  turn  to  the  left,  and  pass  through  three  long, 
narrow  rooms,  which  show  respectively  scenes  of  punishment, 
the  Syrian  campaign,  and  the  banquet. 

These  were  the  richly  adorned  public  rooms  where  the  king 
received  his  prisoners  for  punishment,  his  vassals  to  accept 
gifts,  his  officials  for  consultation.  Near  the  centre  of  the 
platform  and  as  retired  as  possible  were  the  private  apartments 
of  the  king.  Their  simple,  unpretentious  character  speaks  in 
no  uncertain  terms  of  the  almost  Spartan  simplicity  affected 
by  the  warrior  king. 

Skirting  along  the  wall  to  the  southwest,  one  came  to  the 
third  quarter.  Two  doors  at  right  angles  prevented  even  a 
glimpse  into  the  interior  to  the  casual  passer-by,  and  a  ser¬ 
vants’  court  was  another  obstacle  before  one  might  reach  the 
grand  central  court.  Opening  into  this  last  were  two  suites  of 
rooms,  entirely  isolated  and  each  with  its  own  smaller  court¬ 
yard  ;  a  third  suite  opened  directly  into  the  servants’  court.  It 
has  been  generally  assumed  that  this  carefully  shut-off  quarter 


FIGURE  OFFERING.  (PALACE  OF  SARGON.)  Fig.  112.  GILGAMESH  AND  THE  LION.  (PALACE 

(Louvre.)  OF  SARGON.)  (Louvre.) 


SARGONSBURG 


277 


was  the  harem,  that  the  two  suites  of  rooms  belonged  to  Sai¬ 
gon’s  two  wives,  and  that  the  third  was  for  Zakutu,  wife  of 
Sennacherib. 

The  central  enclosure  is  rich  with  tiling  and  remarkable  for 
sculptures  in  the  round,  horned  gypsum  figures  of  the  gods, 
clad  in  enveloping  robes  and  with  slabs  on  their  heads.  If 
they  are  gods,  then  we  may  stress  the  resemblance  in  ground 
plan  to  the  Ashur  temples;  if  we  do  so,  then  we  assume  the 
temples  more  carefully  shut  off  than  the  harem.  Also,  we  still 
have  a  fourth  quarter  devoted  to  the  priesthood,  around  the 
temple  tower,  a  solid  mass  of  brick  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  high.  Each  of  its  seven  stories  bore  the  colour  of  the 
planet  to  which  it  was  dedicated,  around  it  ran  a  ramp  of  easy 
ascent,  and  on  its  summit  were  two  altars  on  which  sacrifices 
were  offered.  Near  by  was  a  small  temple  with  basalt  reliefs, 
and  other  buildings  for  the  private  quarters  of  the  priests, 
scribes,  and  physicians.  The  temples  were  all  endowed  and 
Tab-sil-esharra  writes  of  a  town  in  Halah  which  was  to  be  an 
endowment  of  the  Nabu  temple  at  Dur  Sharrukin;  Hebrews 
had  just  been  settled  here  and  they  may  well  have  been  among 
the  serfs  on  Nabu’s  manor.1 

Outside  the  city  lay  the  great  park,  also  under  the  charge  of 
the  chief  architect,  Tab-shar  Ashur.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
wall,  the  officials  attempted  to  scamp  their  work,  and  Tab-shar 
Ashur  has  to  report  that  Paqaha  has  brought  his  own  men  to 
restore  the  canal,  but  the  radianu  who  was  to  have  collected 
men  for  the  corvee  has  not  turned  up.  So  he  has  taken  a  hun¬ 
dred  of  his  own  to  carry  on  the  whole  for  a  month.  Let  the 
king  force  the  negligent  one  to  a  reckoning.  He  has  one  piece 
of  good  news,  the  governor  of  Rimusi  will  shortly  arrive  with 
three  thousand  men.2 

By  the  side  of  a  tiny  lake  filled  with  fish  and  bearing  two 
equally  tiny  pleasure-boats  rises  a  little  building  of  almost 
purely  Greek  character.  On  a  high  podium  is  a  dystyle  tem¬ 
ple  with  antse.  The  columns  are  unfluted,  but  the  torus  and 
fillet  which  form  the  base  and  the  convex  necking,  volute,  and 

2  H.  102. 


1  H.  480. 


278 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


abacus  of  the  capital  are  purely  Ionic.  The  plain  epistyle  is 
crowned  with  a  wide  cornice  whose  overhang  is  unusually  pro¬ 
nounced.  The  flat  roof  must  have  been  covered  with  tiles,  for 
palmette-shaped  antefixes  appear  above  the  cornice.  Such  a 
building  is  totally  un-Assyrian,  and  it  must  have  been  bor¬ 
rowed  from  the  Greeks  direct  and  recently,  so  exact  is  its  form. 
Is  it  possible  this  is  the  “Hittite”  bit  hilani,  the  so-called 
porch,  about  which  Tab-shar  Ashur  writes  in  connection  with 
the  housekeeper  of  the  bath-house?  1  The  term  “Hittite”  was 
in  these  late  days  applied  especially  to  north  Syria,  and  Sar- 
gon  received  tribute  from  near-by  Greek  kings  of  Cyprus. 

Fig-trees  with  purplish  fruit  and  reddish  leaves  surround  the 
foreign  structure  and  give  place  to  tall  firs  as  a  hill  is  reached. 
Within  the  recesses  partridges  walk,  and  on  the  summit  is  a 
monument  on  a  high  podium,  with  channelled  column,  rectan¬ 
gular  and  channelled  entablature,  above  which  are  stepped 
acroteria. 

Sargon  hurries  in  his  chariot  towards  the  park.  In  his  hand 
is  a  blue  lotus  and  two  buds,  and  his  red-striped  parasol  covers 
his  red-striped  fez.  Spearmen  and  mace-bearers  march  be¬ 
fore,  his  two  beardless  sons  and  their  mounted  attendant  gal¬ 
lop  after.  Next  struts  the  master  of  the  hunt,  a  mace  stiffly 
held  over  his  right  shoulder,  his  left  holding  his  sword  horizon¬ 
tal  with  equal  stiffness.  The  dismounted  servant  now  quiets 
his  master’s  young  stallion  and  retains  the  hare,  which  is  the 
proof  of  the  youth’s  archery;  the  royal  prince  has  transfixed  a 
flying  bird  and  is  now  drawing  bow  at  the  target,  whose  bull’s- 
eye,  or,  rather,  lion’s  head,  he  has  neatly  pierced. 

In  the  banquet-room  of  the  palace  twenty-eight  of  the  high¬ 
est  nobles,  four  to  the  table  and  in  their  richest  dress,  raise 
high  the  capacious  goblets  as  they  drink  the  toast  to  their 
royal  master.  The  tables  are  lion-footed  over  pine-cones, 
table-cloths  cover  each,  and  rich  food  is  placed  upon  them. 
Their  seats  to  us  would  be  uncomfortable,  for  they  have  no 
backs,  but  the  ringed  feet  and  the  bronze  heads  of  bulls  at 
the  corners  give  them  decoration.  A  eunuch  with  fly-flapper 

1 II.  487. 


II 

i 


Fig.  113.  ASSYRIAN  ARCHERY.  (PALACE  OF  Fig.  114.  THE  ROYAL  STUD.  (PALACE 

SARGO^N .)  (Louvre.)  OF  saRGON.)  (Louvre.) 


SARGONSBURG 


279 


stands  behind  each  group  of  two,  affording  the  feasters  royal 
state.  Four  officials  less  richly  dressed  but  carrying  thonged 
maces  have  deposited  the  remains  of  their  feast  on  the  floor 
and  drink  their  toast  standing.  Music  is  contributed  by  a 
harper  who  carries  by  a  broad  belt  slung  over  his  left  shoulder 
an  eight-stringed  instrument,  much  like  the  Greek  lyre.  Trac¬ 
ing  back  the  eunuchs,  who  carry  in  each  hand  one  of  the  large- 
handled  drinking-cups  ending  in  a  huge  lion’s  head  with  open 
jaws,  the  ancestor  of  the  Greek  rhyton,  we  find  them  dipping 
into  the  source  of  supply,  a  huge  mixing-bowl  set  on  a  cone 
with  convex  slope  topped  by  a  reversed  rosette. 

Sargon  and  the  men  who  walked  his  halls  are  presented  with 
almost  photographic  truth.  On  his  head  the  monarch  wears 
the  golden  tiara  studded  with  red  jewels;  it  is  much  like  the 
modern  fez,  but  with  a  stiff  spike  instead  of  the  tassel.  At  the 
back  fringed  red  ribbons  with  rosettes  fall  nearly  to  his  waist. 
His  chief  garment  is  a  long  robe  ornamented  with  rosettes  in¬ 
side  squares  and  fringed  at  the  bottom  with  four  rows  of 
beads.  Over  it  is  a  mantle  with  opening  down  either  side, 
with  double  rosettes  and  fringe.  The  sandals  have  heels  with 
red  and  blue  stripes  and  are  held  in  place  by  a  toe  thong  and 
a  strap  over  the  foot.  His  broadsword  is  ornamented  with 
lions  and  he  also  carries  a  staff.  His  bracelets  are  of  linked 
rosettes,  his  armlets  of  coiled  wire,  his  earrings  are  beaded. 
The  turtanu,  Ashur-isqa-danin,  is  dressed  much  like  his  mas¬ 
ter,  save  that  his  head  has  only  the  fillet,  his  sandals  are  blue, 
his  sword  is  tipped  by  a  hemisphere,  a  ball  with  flat  disks, 
and  a  lion’s  jaw.  Did  we  know  the  exact  order  of  precedence 
at  this  time,  we  might  identify  by  name  the  other  six  officers 
who  regularly  appear  on  the  walls  by  the  side  of  their  lord. 

A  special  place  is  always  given  to  the  eunuchs.  All  wear 
robes  extending  from  neck  to  ankles,  with  rosettes  in  squares 
along  the  lower  portion,  with  fringes  and  beads,  their  sleeves 
are  short,  a  diagonal  fringed  band  crosses  their  chest,  their 
sandals  are  flat,  their  bracelets  bands  of  wire,  their  earrings 
imitate  the  Egyptian  symbol  of  life.  The  objects  they  carry 
are  equally  to  be  noted,  fly-flappers  ending  in  lions’  heads,  the 


280 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


feathers  inserted  in  a  lotus-bud,  napkins  red  with  the  Phoeni¬ 
cian  “purple,”  bows  ending  in  the  heads  of  birds,  maces  with 
wrist-loop  and  topped  with  a  ball,  a  crown,  and  the  jaws  of  a  lion. 

Dur  Sharrukin  enables  us  to  realise  the  great  advance  in  art 
made  during  the  period.  The  artistic  ability  of  the  nation  had 
been  almost  ruined  in  the  period  of  decline,  but  with  Tiglath 
Pileser  III  we  have  a  change  for  the  better.  Assyrian  art 
found  its  highest  expression  in  its  bas-reliefs;  they  extended  for 
a  mile  along  the  walls  of  Sargon’s  palace,  and  their  beauty  is 
undeniable.  A  new  experiment,  or,  rather,  the  revival  of  an 
older  method  under  the  influence  of  Hittite  Carchemish,  was 
attempted,  the  use  of  basalt  for  the  oversoft  alabaster,  but  it 
was  soon  abandoned.  Vivid  colours,  in  accordance  with  the 
general  rule  in  ancient  art,  were  used  to  bring  out  the  details. 
Sculpture  in  the  round  is  rare;  a  good  example  is  the  figure 
bearing  the  plinth,  and  the  twenty-six  human-headed  bulls, 
each  weighing  forty  tons,  were  half  in  the  round.  Only  fine¬ 
ness  of  finish  could  avail  here,  for  the  general  outline,  even  to 
the  fifth  leg,  was  ordained  by  the  accepted  canons  of  art;  com¬ 
parison  with  similar  figures  from  the  palace  of  Ashur-nasir- 
apal  shows  a  wonderful  increase  in  lifelikeness. 

Painting  was  placed  directly  on  the  crude  brick  wall,  and 
but  one  or  two  fragments  afford  some  slight  conception  of  an 
art  little  inferior  to  the  reliefs.  Tiling  has  always  been  a 
specialty  of  the  Near  East,  and  some  of  its  finest  specimens 
may  be  found  in  the  palace  of  Sargon.  On  the  gates  we  have 
courses  where  figures  with  the  mystic  palm  spathe  face  each 
other  across  a  circular  ornament  intended  for  the  sun,  the  whole 
enclosed  within  rows  of  conventionalised  white  and  yellow 
daisies.  Other  friezes  in  tile  show  conventionalised  but  vig¬ 
orous  lions,  bulls,  and  eagles,  the  ancestors  of  the  better-known 
figures  prepared  by  Nebuchadnezzar  for  the  Processional  Road 
of  Babylon.  A  rude  fig-tree  and  a  more  complicated  plough 
than  the  one  in  use  to-day  are  of  more  interest  for  subject  than 
for  execution,  while  the  series  reaches  its  highest  development 
in  the  truly  magnificent  figures  of  Sargon  and  his  turtanu. 

Their  best  efforts  were  no  longer  lavished  on  ceramics,  for 


t\K 


Fig.  115.  GARDEN  SCENE:  THE  “IONIC”  TEMPLE. 


Fig.  11G.  PALACE  AT  DUR  SHARRUKIN.  (RESTORATION.) 

In  front  is  the  royal  gateway  and  service  court,  to  left  the  “harem,”  to  right  the  official 

quarters,  in  the  rear  the  temple  tower. 


SARGONSBURG 


281 


alabaster,  the  metals,  and  glass  had  relegated  mere  pottery  to 
a  secondary  place.  One  room  showed  a  complete  nest  of  jars, 
one  within  the  other,  and  ranging  from  pithoi  four  feet  high 
to  tiny  pipkins.  Glass,  known  in  Egypt  from  at  least  the 
times  of  the  twelfth  dynasty,  twelve  hundred  years  before, 
now  appears  in  Assyria.  One  beautiful  and  elaborate  glass 
bottle  was  found  in  a  storeroom,  the  sole  perfect  survival  of  a 
large  collection,  and  Kalhu  furnished  a  fine  example  with  Sar- 
gon’s  name  actually  upon  it.  Babylonian  seal  cylinders  were 
still  being  manufactured  in  large  numbers,  but  the  seal  im¬ 
pressions  on  the  Assyrian  business  documents  indicate  that  the 
stamp  seal  so  common  in  later  times  was  already  beginning  to 
be  employed  on  a  large  scale. 

Metal  working  was  at  a  high  stage.  Fragments  of  bronze 
reliefs  from  the  supposed  harem,  remains  of  facing  on  a  wooden 
door,  make  us  regret  the  loss  of  a  second  Balawat  history  in 
pictures.  Lifelike  bronze  lions,  miniature  replicas  of  those  in 
the  palace  of  Ashur-nasir-apal,  furnish  the  exact  weights  used 
in  Assyrian  metrology  and  illustrate  a  curious  bit  of  economic 
history.  Previously  the  Assyrians  had  employed  the  heavy 
mana  or  double  pound,  while  Babylonia  and  Syria  preferred 
the  light  or  Carchemish  mana,  about  our  own  pound.  Other 
kings  had  simply  tolerated  this  light  mana,  but  Sargon,  con¬ 
queror  of  Carchemish,  made  it  as  “royal”  or  official  as  the 
“mana  of  the  land.”  Thus  possible  obstacles  to  western  trade 
were  removed. 

Well  as  they  handled  copper  and  bronze,  the  Assyrians  had 
long  ago  entered  the  age  of  iron;  indeed  there  was  an  iron  fur¬ 
nace  in  the  palace  in  Ashur.1  Much  of  their  success  in  war¬ 
fare,  as  in  the  arts  of  peace,  was  due  to  the  extensive  use  of 
the  metal.  How  commonly  it  was  employed  may  be  surmised 
from  the  fact  that  one  storehouse  in  Dur  Sharrukin  preserved 
nearly  two  hundred  tons,  all  worked  up  into  implements. 
Among  these  was  a  huge  iron  chain,  hammers,  pickaxes,  mat¬ 
tocks,  and  ploughshares,  of  the  same  sort  as  used  by  modern 
peasants  but  of  larger  size.  Some  of  the  picks  weighed  over 

1H.  91. 


282 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


twenty-five  pounds,  and  their  peculiar  resonance  is  especially 
noted. 

Rush  the  building  as  the  architect  might  try,  the  construc¬ 
tion  was  slow.  The  dedication  was  celebrated  in  706  with  a 
great  feast,  at  which  the  princes  of  the  blood  royal,  the  higher 
officials,  and  the  scribes  were  invited  guests.  Within  the  year 
Sargon  was  no  more.  His  great  building  venture  was  left  in¬ 
complete.  One  gate  was  without  its  bulls,  the  inscriptions  in 
it  were  merely  painted,  the  temple  was  half  finished,  partially 
carved  slabs  were  abandoned  in  the  workshop.  Natural  decay 
was  not  permitted  to  complete  the  slow  destruction.  The  de¬ 
scendants  of  Sargon  were  vandals  who  no  more  respected  the 
edifice  erected  by  the  founder  of  their  dynasty  than  they  did 
those  of  the  one  he  had  supplanted.  Many  of  the  bas-reliefs 
have  been  mutilated  beyond  hope  of  recovery,  and  that  by  no 
barbarian’s  hand,  for  the  mutilation  was  caused  by  the  chisel 
of  the  expert.  Many  others  were  carried  off  to  the  too-near 
Nineveh,  there  to  adorn  the  new  abode  of  Sennacherib. 

With  its  brief  glory  gone,  the  city  still  lingered,  and  is  occa¬ 
sionally  referred  to.  At  the  downfall  of  the  empire  it  was 
burned  over  and  then  went  to  ruin.  In  the  Arab  middle  ages 
Sarghun  was  not  quite  forgotten,  but  a  new  name  was  coming 
into  use.  Persia  had  twice  ruled  the  world,  and  the  second 
empire  was  fast  joining  the  first  as  the  happy  hunting-ground 
of  legend.  One  of  the  few  Sassanid  heroes  still  remembered 
was  Chosrhoes,  and  to  him  was  ascribed  the  ruin,  now  called 
Khosraubad,  the  “town  of  Chosrhoes.” 

To-day  the  surly  peasants  of  the  vermin-filled  little  village 
of  Khorsabad  pick  their  way  through  mud  by  the  aid  of  bricks 
bearing  the  name  of  Sargon.  But  for  long  ages  none  could 
read  the  writing,  and  the  only  proof  of  his  existence  was  due 
to  the  accidental  fact  that  a  prophet  in  a  petty  western  king¬ 
dom  happened  to  have  dated  a  sermon  by  the  year  when  his 
turtanu  took  Ashdod.1  So  little  did  this  establish  his  identity, 
such  is  the  irony  of  fate,  that  scholars  long  argued  that  he  was 
the  same  as  that  Shalmaneser  whose  throne  he  had  usurped. 

1  Isaiah  20  :  1. 


Fig.  117.  BRINGING  THE  TABLES  FOR  THE  BANQUET. 
(PALACE  OF  SARGON.)  (Louvre.) 


118.  DRINKING  CUPS  AND  THE  STATE  CHARIOT. 
(PALACE  OF  SARGON.)  (Louvre.) 


Fig. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 


SENNACHERIB  AND  THE  BABYLONIAN  PROBLEM 

Sennacherib  was  no  novice  in  ruling  when  in  August  of  705 
he  entered  upon  his  inheritance.  There  is  no  likelihood  that 
he  was  born  to  the  purple;  he  appears  so  early  as  heir  pre¬ 
sumptive  and  is  found  in  such  responsible  positions  that  he 
must  have  been  in  the  prime  of  life  at  his  father’s  accession. 
While  Sargon  was  annexing  Babylonia,  his  son  remained  as 
regent  in  Kalhu,  and  by  his  conduct  of  the  Armenian  opera¬ 
tions  accustomed  men  to  his  personal  rule. 

All  the  courage  and  ability  possessed  by  the  new  ruler  was 
needed.  His  father,  so  the  priests  informed  him,  had  sinned 
against  the  gods  and  had  incurred  the  curse  of  the  king  of  the 
gods,  therefore  he  should  not  be  buried  in  his  own  house.  The 
pious  son  inquired  of  the  oracle  and  learned  what  was  needed 
to  cleanse  his  father’s  sin;  the  cost  was  high — elaborate  cere¬ 
monies,  an  image  of  the  god  Ashur,  restoration  of  Assyrian 
temples.  Sennacherib  paid,  but  thereafter  he  was  more  than 
cool  to  the  priests. 

The  news  that  an  Assyrian  king  had  fallen  in  battle  brought 
about  an  immediate  uprising  of  the  subject  states.  Incited  by 
Egypt,  Hezekiah  of  Judah  openly  defied  Assyria  in  spite  of  the 
threats  of  Isaiah,  and  this  was  typical  of  the  unrest  which  had 
gripped  all  Syria,  for  even  Phoenicia  forgot  commercial  expe¬ 
diency  and  revolted  under  Tyre’s  leadership.  Those  who  still 
clung  to  Assyria  suffered  like  Padi  of  Ekron,  who  was  handed 
over  to  Hezekiah  by  the  populace.  The  Cappadocian  prov¬ 
ince,  so  laboriously  formed  by  Sargon,  slipped  away  almost 
without  notice.  The  defeat  of  the  Haldian  king  laid  open  the 
whole  northern  and  eastern  frontiers  to  the  Indo-Europeans, 
and  the  Medes  were  driving  the  Elamites  and  their  kindred 
towards  Assyria.  Babylonia  remained  but  half  pacified,  and, 
with  much  of  Assyria  proper,  was  infested  by  Aramaean  tribes. 

283 


284 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Babylonia  offered  the  most  pressing  danger.  Sennacherib 
refused  to  follow  his  father’s  policy  in  making  himself  king, 
but  handed  over  Babylon  to  his  younger  brother,  while  retain¬ 
ing  such  control  that  the  king  lists  could  actually  call  him  the 
ruling  monarch.  Chauvinistic  writers,  however,  marked  the 
years  704-703  as  “kingless.”  1 

After  two  years  the  Assyrian  rule  came  to  an  end,  and  a 
former  official  of  Merodach  Baladan,  Marduk-zakir-shum  II, 
succeeded  in  holding  the  throne  against  the  attacks  of  Marduk- 
bel-ushezib  and  Marduk-balatsu-iqbi.  Merodach  Baladan  re¬ 
appeared  and  retrieved  his  old  position  with  the  aid  of  Shu- 
truk  Nahhunte  of  Elam.  Six  months  he  was  allowed  to  reign 
in  peace.  Then  the  Assyrian  commander-in-chief  began  the 
siege  of  Kish,  but  received  the  worst  of  it  and  begged  aid  from 
his  monarch,  who  was  now  engaged  before  Kutu.  Urged  to 
haste  by  this  appeal,  Sennacherib  assaulted  Kutu  with  fire  and 
took  it,  and  forced  to  surrender  Nergal-nasir,  the  Sute  leader, 
and  ten  Elamite  captains. 

The  sculptures  of  Sennacherib  were  labelled  on  the  extreme 
upper  edge,  and  the  subsequent  burning  of  the  palace  has  al¬ 
most  without  exception  destroyed  these  epigraphs.  A  scene 
dominated  by  a  huge  river  which  fills  a  third  of  the  reliefs  may 
represent  the  siege  of  Kutu.  Grooms  unharnessed  the  horses 
and  led  them  down  to  the  water  or  unyoked  those  attached  to 
the  royal  chariot.  The  charioteer  still  clung  to  his  reins,  and 
the  eunuch  was  just  raising  the  parasol  above  the  king’s  head. 
The  skins  were  being  prepared  for  the  raft  which  was  to  be 
used  for  the  crossing.  Some  of  the  skins  were  already  inflated 
and  were  being  brought  to  the  water’s  edge,  others  were  being 
blown  up  and  the  openings  tied.  The  river  was  filled  with 
soldiers  swimming  on  their  individual  goatskins,  shield  on 

1  For  history  of  reign,  cf.  “  Western  Asia  in  the  Reign  of  Sennacherib,”  Proceed¬ 
ings  of  Amer.  Historical  Assn.,  1909,  93  ff . ;  for  relations  with  Babylon,  AJSL., 
XXX-VIII,  73  ff.;  bibliography  and  source  criticism,  Historiography,  43  ff.  The 
greater  part  of  the  records  may  be  found  in  Bezold,  KB.,  II,  80  ff.;  the  present 
account  is  based  on  the  new  edition  by  the  author  of  this  history.  Valuable 
supplements  are  to  be  found  in  the  bas-reliefs,  described  by  Layard,  Nineveh 
and  its  Remains;  Nineveh  and  Babylon;  reproduced,  Layard,  Monuments  of 
Nineveh;  Paterson,  Palace  of  Sinacherib. 


■ 

*  1 

!  #  f* 

- — 1 

1 - 

* 

.  % 

sjF  §r  a 

■■  # 

*  • 

*:  *  \*  *  ;# 

I  #  ®T§ 

/7 

Fig.  119.  CROW  AND  BULL  IN  GLAZED  BRICKS.  (PALACE  OF  SARGON.) 


*- 

{-/ 

*  f 

- . -f"" 

#  *  I  # 

*  • 

*  *  * 

«  *  * 

V 

-  I  '  •"  ■  ts&Bljte 

—  - -L- ...s. - - 

. '  "  r*$**r* 

v'  '  "  *  '  ^  S^1S^ 

pBmlKv* 

1  UV?'  -  -H.  A;  ^ 

i  CV  *’  '  V  '' 

pU.  - 

» 

0  -* 

te  *  1 

i.- 

.  * 

* 

1 

s 

§ 4 

* 

0  1 

#  1 

£ 

1  # 

$  *1! 

Fig.  120.  TREE  AND  PLOUGH  IN  GLAZED  BRICKS.  (PALACE  OF  SARGON.) 


SENNACHERIB 


285 


back  and  spear  tightly  clasped  in  hand.  While  the  king 
remained  safe  on  the  near  bank,  his  warriors  laid  siege  to 
an  outpost  which  was  vigorously  defended  by  the  archers. 
Mounted  cavalry  shot  their  arrows  from  horseback,  those  on 
foot  found  refuge  behind  the  high,  curving  shield,  and  one 
infantryman,  kneeling  under  a  short  wicker  shield,  dug  out 
stones  from  the  wall.  The  city  proper  was  guarded  by  high 
battlements  and  lofty  stage  towers,  while  five  square  gates 
gave  access  to  a  smaller  stream.  The  main  town  fell  an  easy 
prey  when  the  outwork  was  taken,  for  all  the  warriors  had 
been  concentrated  for  its  defence.  Women  captives,  with  fil¬ 
leted  hair,  long  outer  robe,  and  inner  shirt,  were  conveyed  on 
ox-carts,  the  men  wore  a  fillet  and  a  short  tunic  fastened  at 
the  waist  by  a  broad  belt.  More  than  a  dozen  statues  of  the 
gods,  some  as  much  as  three  feet  high,  their  hands  raised  and 
a  staff  in  their  left  fists,  were  clasped  tightly  about  their  waists 
by  the  soldiers  who  removed  them. 

Sennacherib  then  hastened  to  Kish,  represented  as  on  the 
near  side  of  the  river  and  surrounded  by  a  reed-filled  ditch, 
which  had  been  crossed  by  infantry  and  cavalry.  Behind  his 
huge  circular  shield,  an  Assyrian  was  attempting  to  fire  the 
city  gate  with  a  torch,  and  the  enemy  was  begging  for  mercy. 
Merodach  Baladan  hastily  decamped,  but  among  the  captives 
were  his  stepson  and  a  brother  of  an  Arab  queen. 

To  Sennacherib,  watching  the  proceedings  from  the  safer 
side  of  the  river,  his  soldiers  carried  the  heads  of  the  slaughtered 
foes  and  heaped  them  up  in  a  reed  arbour,  slung  between  palm 
trunks.  Here,  too,  were  deposited  the  caldrons  and  drinking- 
bowls,  the  bed  and  throne,  the  spear  bundles  and  swords. 
One  group  stands  out  with  unusual  vividness,  the  little  calf 
trotting  blithely  ahead,  the  patient  cow,  the  bull  hanging  back 
and  roaring  protest,  his  head  tossed  high  in  air.  The  male 
captives  were  handcuffed  in  pairs  and  loaded  with  skins  of  food 
and  water  for  the  long  march  to  their  new  homes;  the  majority 
of  the  women  were  placed  on  mules  or  ox-carts.  Our  sculptor 
shows  a  real  sympathy  for  the  deported  wretches  in  the  scenes 
where  the  mothers  hold  out  the  water-skins  for  their  children 


286 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


to  drink  or  the  fathers  plod  along  with  their  little  ones  on  their 
shoulders.  Lest  we  should  fail  to  realise  that  the  march  was 
forced  in  the  midst  of  the  fearful  Babylonian  summer,  the 


Fig.  121.  FIGHTING  IN  THE  BABYLONIAN  MARSHES. 


artist  has  indicated  the  season  by  the  huge  clusters  of  ripe 
dates  which  load  the  palm-trees. 

Babylon,  with  its  accumulated  treasures,  fell  into  Assyrian 
hands  without  further  fighting.  By  this  time  the  Chaldaean 
ruler  had  taken  refuge  in  the  swamps  whose  junglelike  recesses 


SENNACHERIB 


t 


287 


are  pictured  in  the  reliefs.  Up  the  watery  ways,  almost  like 
narrow  streets,  the  startled  inhabitants  pushed  their  rafts, 
squatted  behind  their  reeds,  several  times  man  height,  or  from 
their  shelter  shot  arrows  at  their  invaders,  who  pursued  them 
in  light  wicker  boats.  In  hand-to-hand  struggles  the  enemy 
were  decapitated  and  thrown  to  the  fishes.  One  unfortunate 
was  ordered  by  his  captor  to  swim  on  a  skin  and  by  a  rope 
drag  a  skiff  in  which  his  family  was  being  led  into  captivity. 

Once  on  firmer  ground,  the  women  were  bundled  into  rude 
four-spoked  ox-carts  or  mounted  on  asses,  the  wagons  were 
heaped  with  furniture,  vessels,  and  weapons.  Especially  to 
be  noted  is  a  tall  casket  of  some  precious  metal,  battlemented 
and  towered  walls  resting  on  rosettes  and  a  primitive  sort  of 
Ionic  volute,  a  round  column  with  base,  ox-footed  legs,  the 
whole  on  a  stool  with  cone-shaped  supports.  On  their  heads 
the  captives  carry  wicker  baskets  or  large  leather  water-bot¬ 
tles.  Very  graceful  is  the  figure  of  the  woman  giving  a  skin 
of  water  to  her  child.  An  idyllic  touch  ends  the  recital,  the 
hungry  soldiers  roasting  a  leg  of  lamb  before  the  fire,  and  the 
happy  warrior  who  will  diversify  his  supper  by  the  wild  duck 
he  has  caught  around  the  neck.  After  but  five  days’  search 
in  the  marshes,  it  was  reported  that  no  trace  of  the  Chaldsean 
could  be  found  and  all  pretence  of  pursuit  was  abandoned. 

Eighty-eight  mighty  cities  and  eight  hundred  and  twenty 
smaller  towns  of  their  territory  were  occupied.  One  of  the 
few  sets  which  has  preserved  its  label  represents  Dilbat  sur¬ 
rounded  by  its  palm-trees  and  with  a  river  on  either  side,  but 
the  palms  are  being  hacked  down  by  the  Assyrian  soldiery.  A 
second  depicts  the  captivity  of  a  riverine  tribe,  their  millet-fields 
surrounded  by  reed  swamps  and  palm-trees,  their  towns  graced 
by  a  peculiar  wedge-shaped  ornament  on  the  walls.  The  cap¬ 
tive  women  bore  vases  and  caldrons,  the  men  large  wicker 
baskets,  and  some  drove  ox-carts.  These  were  the  tribesmen 
of  the  Dakkuru,  Saalli,  Amukkanu,  and  Iakin,  and  we  have  an 
elaborate  list  of  their  towns;  every  possible  hamlet  is  given  and 
the  still  smaller  “cities”  cited  cannot  even  be  farmsteads. 
That  these  nomads  should  be  settled  in  the  oldest  cities  of 


288 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Babylonia  is  the  saddest  commentary  on  the  degree  to  which 
the  country  had  fallen  from  its  former  estate. 

The  attempt  to  hold  Babylon  as  a  separate  dependency 
under  the  rule  of  a  member  of  the  royal  family  had  proved  a 
failure.  Sennacherib  was  still  patient  and  hoped  to  win  over 
the  dissatisfied  Babylonians  by  giving  them  a  native  Chal- 
daean,  Bel-ibni  by  name,  whom  he  calls  “the  son  of  the  chief 
architect,  the  seed  of  Babylon/’  but  who  in  reality  seems  to 
have  been  a  member  of  the  family  of  Merodach  Baladan.  He 
had  passed  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  Sargon’s  palace  in 
Kalhu,  and  might  therefore  be  supposed  safely  pro-Assyrian. 

On  his  homeward  way,  Sennacherib  slew  the  Hirimme  who 
had  never  paid  tribute  to  his  fathers  until  not  one  survived 
the  sword.  On  the  inhabitants  who  were  newly  settled  in 
their  place  was  placed  the  duty  of  furnishing  “forever”  one 
ox,  ten  sheep,  ten  homers  of  sesame  wine,  twenty  homers  of 
fine  dates,  as  the  stated  dues  of  the  god  Ashur.  We  are  a 
long,  long  distance  from  the  eighty  thousand  and  fifty  oxen 
and  the  eight  hundred  thousand  one  hundred  sheep  he  claims 
to  have  brought  back  to  Assyria. 

He  is  telling  the  literal  truth  when  he  declares  that  the 
Iasubigallai  were  not  submissive  to  the  kings  his  fathers,  for 
six  centuries  before  Arik-den-ilu  had  taken  up  arms  against 
them.  The  Assyrian  column  passed  through  lofty  wooded 
mountains,  where  the  king  must  mount  a  horse  while  his 
chariot  was  carried  on  men’s  backs,  and  there  were  spots  where 
the  king  must  climb  on  his  own  feet  like  a  wild  bull.  The  dis¬ 
trict  was  annexed  to  Arrapha. 

Shortly  after,  he  received  a  letter  from  the  governor  of  Kar 
Sharrukin,  probably  still  Nabu-bel-ukin.  The  whole  garrison 
is  well  and  the  village  chiefs  have  asked  for  peace.  Ishpabare 
has  revolted  against  him  and  killed  his  troops.1  He  was  quickly 
defeated,  and  a  section  of  Elli  was  detached  and  formally 
organised  by  the  governor  of  Harhar.  A  single  epigraph  which 
identifies  the  plunder  of  Bit  Kubatti  places  the  group  of  moun¬ 
tain  backgrounds  on  the  eastern  frontier.  The  Assyrian  army 

1 H.  645. 


SENNACHERIB 


289 


marches  out  in  great  numbers,  archers,  slingers,  and  spearmen, 
each  in  his  appropriate  company.  A  mountain  torrent,  filled 
with  fish,  turtles,  and  eels,  is  near  a  city  surrounded  by  trees. 
Spearmen  scale  the  rocks,  archers  shoot  from  the  foot  of  the 
hill,  footmen  climb  the  walls  and  slay  the  fugitives  as  they 
seek  escape  over  the  flat  housetops. 

Striking  tribute  to  the  artist’s  keenness  of  observation  is 
afforded  by  one  scene.  On  the  summits  of  the  mountains  are 
pine-trees,  those  same  strata  of  pine-bearing  sandstone  so  con¬ 
spicuous  in  the  Lebanon.  Vineyards  fill  the  centre  along  the 
river,  only  scrub-oak  grows  in  the  lower  portions,  in  close  con¬ 
tact  with  the  villages.  Literally  hundreds  of  his  soldiers  in 
regular  order  accompany  the  king  in  his  chariot  through  the 
forest.  In  regular  Indian  fashion,  Assyrians  fight  in  the  woods 
the  natives,  with  reversed  liberty-caps  and  lappets;  trees  are 
felled  to  build  a  ramp  against  the  walls;  the  walls  are  climbed, 
the  sheep  slain,  the  captives  dragged  off. 

Images  of  the  gods,  small  figures  with  high  conical  hats, 
their  hands  joined  in  front  of  them,  sit  uncomfortably  on  poles 
laid  on  the  shoulders  of  their  new  worshippers.  Heavy  loads 
are  borne  on  the  backs  of  the  captives  and  placed  on  the  kneel¬ 
ing  camel,  whose  groans  of  protest  can  be  prevented  from  cul¬ 
minating  in  determined  revolt  only  by  the  uplifted  foot  of  the 
driver.  We  are  then  shown  the  loaded  camel  on  the  journey, 
the  captives  bent  under  their  burdens,  the  cart  heaped  with 
planks.  There  is  a  pause  in  the  march,  the  horses  are  fed  from 
portable  mangers,  the  father  sits  on  the  cart-pole  and  eats 
while  the  mother  on  a  bale  of  goods  holds  her  wearied  boy  on 
her  lap.  In  the  contrast  the  sculptor  so  well  loved,  we  are 
shown  the  lone  fisherman,  wading  in  his  mountain  pool,  play¬ 
ing  one  fish  caught  on  his  line,  the  wicker  hamper  on  his  back 
filled  with  previously  acquired  trophies. 

The  absence  of  Sennacherib  in  the  west  (701;  simply  fur¬ 
nished  another  opportunity  to  the  Chaldeans.  Bel-ibni  rec¬ 
ognised  the  claim  of  kinship  and  united  with  Merodach  Bal- 
adan  and  with  Nergal-ushezib,  who,  from  his  home  in  the 
swamp-land,  was  intriguing  for  the  throne  he  was  later  to  fill. 


290 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Nergal-ushezib  went  down  to  sudden  defeat  at  Bit  Tuti  (700) 
and  Merodach  Baladan  was  driven  to  a  desperate  step.  Col¬ 
lecting  the  gods  in  their  shrines  and  the  bones  of  his  ancestors 
from  their  last  resting-place,  the  incongruous  cargo  was  shipped 
to  Nagitu  in  the  midst  of  the  sea.  Reverence  for  the  dead 
outweighed  regard  for  the  living,  and  many  of  his  kinsmen, 
including  even  his  brother,  were  left  behind  on  the  shore.  The 
policy  of  conciliation  which  had  borne  such  evil  fruit  was  defi¬ 
nitely  abandoned,  and  the  crown  prince,  Ashur-nadin-shum, 
was  brought  from  the  palace  his  father  had  recently  con¬ 
structed  for  him  in  Ashur,  and  was  made  king  of  Babylon 
(699-694).  Bel-ibni  was  carried  back  to  Assyria,  where  he 
was  leading  a  quiet  life  as  late  as  682. 

Before  long  the  conviction  became  a  certainty  that  there 
was  no  hope  of  Babylon  remaining  content  with  Assyrian  rule 
while  Merodach  Baladan  remained  alive,  and  Sennacherib  de¬ 
termined  to  attack  his  refuge  by  sea.  Neither  Assyrians  nor 
Babylonians  possessed  fleets  on  the  Persian  Gulf  and  Sen¬ 
nacherib  was  forced  to  rely  on  the  Phoenicians.  Orders  were 
given  them  to  construct  great  ships  at  the  head  of  navigation 
of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  at  Nineveh  and  Til  Barsip.  Their 
crews,  too,  were  foreigners — Tyrians,  Sidonians,  and  even 
Ionian  Greeks.  The  Tigris  ships  descended  to  Opis,  whence 
they  were  dragged  by  rollers  through  the  reeds  to  the  Arahtu 
at  Babylon,  and  so  into  the  Euphrates.  Troops  were  em¬ 
barked,  and  they  were  joined  by  the  Euphrates  ships,  with 
barley  and  other  grains  for  the  horses,  collected  from  the  fer¬ 
tile  plains  about  Til  Barsip. 

Camp  was  pitched  at  Bab  Salimeti,  the  “Gate  of  Peace,” 
two  hours  distant  from  the  coast-line,  but  soon  the  tide  came 
up  and  began  to  enter  the  tents.  There  was  actual  danger 
that  the  entire  expedition  might  be  wiped  out,  and  Sennacherib 
confesses  that  he  was  forced  to  take  refuge  on  the  fleet,  where 
he  remained  five  days  shut  up  as  in  a  cage.  We  can  under¬ 
stand  how  the  Phoenicians  from  the  virtually  tideless  Medi¬ 
terranean  should  not  know  the  action  of  the  tides;  it  seems 
hardly  credible  that  there  was  no  responsible  person  in  the 


SENNACHERIB 


291 


army  who  possessed  the  requisite  information.  So  alarmed 
was  Sennacherib  that  he  determined  not  to  take  charge  in  per¬ 
son  of  further  operations. 

The  ships  continued  on  to  the  swamps  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river  where  the  Euphrates  then  discharged  its  waters  direct 
into  the  receding  sea.  Ea,  god  of  the  deep,  whose  wrath  might 
be  seen  in  their  misfortune,  was  propitiated  by  elaborate  sac¬ 
rifices.  A  fish,  a  ship,  and  a  figure  of  the  capricorn,  all  of 
gold,  were  thrown  into  the  sea;  a  century  ago  the  same  cus¬ 
tom  was  observed  in  entering  the  Persian  Gulf,  when  mariners 
sent  forth  a  cocoanut  boat  with  rice  and  prayers. 

We  should  naturally  assume  from  the  account  of  these  for¬ 
malities  that  a  trip  of  some  length  lay  before  the  fleet;  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  was  merely  the  crossing  of  a  corner  of  the 
gulf  to  the  Ulai  River,  probably  not  more  than  a  single  day’s 
journey  for  the  slowest  of  the  boats.  Curious,  too,  is  the 
thought  that  for  many  centuries  the  part  of  the  map  they 
sailed  has  been  solid  land  far  north  of  the  present  shore-line. 

Once  more  the  inexperience  of  the  armada  proved  its  un¬ 
doing.  The  invaders  landed  at  a  most  unsuitable  place,  where 
the  shore  was  marshy.  Wading  through  the  shallow  water, 
they  found  a  huge  army  drawn  up  on  the  Ulai.  The  Assyrian 
tells  the  usual  tale  of  cities  laid  waste,  but  the  return  of  the 
ships  to  Bab  Salimeti  marked  the  abandonment  of  the  effort 
to  take  Merodach  Baladan,  dead  or  alive  (694). 

The  expedition  did  have  one  unexpected  consequence.  The 
year  699  had  seen  in  Elam  the  downfall  of  Shutruk  Nahhunte 
and  his  imprisonment  at  the  hands  of  his  brother,  Hallutush 
In  Shushinak  II.  Everything  was  propitious  for  war  with 
Assyria,  and  in  the  spring  of  694  he  moved  straight  against 
Sippar,  massacred  the  inhabitants,  and  sent  Ashur-nadin-shum 
to  Elam  to  meet  his  fate.  Babylon  fell  into  his  hands,  and 
Nergal-ushezib,  the  son  of  Gahul,  realised  at  last  his  ambition, 
though  with  Elamite  aid.  At  the  end  of  the  year  694  north 
Babylonia  was  garrisoned  by  Elamite  armies  and  the  invasion 
of  Assyria  had  begun;  by  the  following  July  the  central  point 
of  Babylonia,  Nippur,  had  been  secured. 


292 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Such  rapid  progress  of  the  enemy  was  sufficient  cause  for 
alarm.  The  crown  prince  was  a  captive,  if  not  already  mer¬ 
cifully  relieved  by  death,  the  north  was  in  Elamite  hands,  the 
greater  part  of  the  Assyrian  regular  army  was  in  the  south 
and  completely  encircled.  A  whole  year  they  remained  with¬ 
out  movement ;  then,  towards  the  end  of  September,  they  took 
the  offensive,  but  by  that  time  Uruk  had  been  handed  over  by 
its  citizens  to  the  enemy.  In  retaliation,  the  Assyrians  exe¬ 
cuted  the  son  of  the  Elamite  king,  who  had  fallen  into  their 
hands  in  the  first  battle  and  Uruk  was  recaptured,  only  to  fall 
almost  immediately  into  Chaldsean  control.  One  week  later 
the  final  battle  of  the  campaign  was  contested  at  Nippur.  A 
second  time  the  Assyrians  gained  the  upper  hand,  but  the  cap¬ 
ture  of  Nergal-ushezib  was  not  due  to  Assyrian  prowess,  as 
Sennacherib  claims.  A  later  letter  tells  how  he  was  betrayed 
and  how  the  traitor  was  laid  upon  a  balance  and  the  other 
pan  weighted  with  the  silver  which  was  the  reward  for  his 
treachery.1  Nergal-ushezib  was  exposed  in  the  great  gate  at 
Nineveh,  but  this  was  only  revenge;  it  could  not  restore  Sen¬ 
nacherib’s  first-born. 

Checked  up  by  the  topography,  these  victories  barely  won  a 
safe  retreat  for  the  imperilled  army,  and  the  alluvium  was  in 
no  sense  Assyrian.  A  successor  to  Nergal-ushezib  was  found 
in  the  Chaldsean  Mushezib  Marduk  (692-689),  who  had  been 
driven  to  Elam  when  he  resisted  the  governor  of  the  newly 
established  province  of  Lahiru,  and  now  came  back  in  the  train 
of  the  foreign  conqueror.  That  conqueror  was  not  to  triumph 
long,  for  on  the  26th  of  the  same  month  which  had  seen  the 
fall  of  Uruk  and  the  captivity  of  Nergal-ushezib,  Hallutush 
In  Shushinak  met  his  death  in  an  uprising,  and  his  place  was 
taken  by  Kutir  Nahhunte  II. 

Taking  advantage  of  the  change  in  Elam,  Sennacherib 
sought  his  revenge,  late  as  was  the  season.  The  boundary 
posts  of  which  the  Elamites  had  deprived  Sargon  were  easily 
won  back  and  placed  under  the  fortress  chief  of  Der.  When 
Kutir  Nahhunte  heard  the  report  of  the  long  list  of  cities  which 

1  H.  292. 


SENNACHERIB 


293 


had  fallen  prey  to  the  invaders,  he  left  Mataktu,  with  its  palm- 
covered  groves  between  the  rivers,  and  retreated  to  the  far- 
distant  mountains.  It  was  now  the  month  of  January,  and 
the  terrible  cold,  the  rain,  and  the  snow  proved  too  much  for 
the  Assyrian  morale;  Sennacherib  frankly  admits  that  he 
feared  the  brooks  and  torrents  and  hastily  returned  to  Nineveh.1 

Defeat  for  the  Elamite  king  was  followed  by  the  expected 
revolution,  and  after  but  ten  months  of  power  Kutir  Nahhunte 
was  succeeded  in  August  of  692  by  his  younger  brother,  Hum- 
banimena.  Invited  to  assist  Mushezib  Marduk,  the  allies 
mustered  an  army  of  rarely  composite  character.  They  came 
from  Parsua  by  Lake  Urumia,  far  to  the  north  of  Elam  and 
from  Anzan,  equally  far  to  the  south  along  the  Gulf;  in  their 
ranks  were  Aramaeans  headed  by  Samuna,  the  son  of  the  now 
deceased  Merodach  Baladan,  the  houses  of  Adinu,  Amukkanu, 
Gambulu;  to  continue  the  roll  is  to  repeat  the  census  of  the 
Aramaean  tribes  in  Babylonia. 

No  stand  was  made  by  the  Assyrians  until  the  motley  host 
had  reached  Halulina  on  the  Tigris,  well  within  the  debatable 
land.  The  official  account  is  picturesque  enough.  Shuzub,  as 
Sennacherib  contemptuously  abbreviates  the  name  of  Mushe¬ 
zib  Marduk,  is  wicked,  base,  without  knees,  a  fugitive  Ara¬ 
maean,  a  deserter,  a  murderer,  a  plunderer,  and  even  when 
he  fled  to  Elam  infamy  and  crime  followed  him  there.  Like 
the  onset  of  numerous  locusts  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  the 
enemy  came  together  to  make  battle.  The  dust  of  their  feet, 
like  a  heavy  storm-cloud  pregnant  with  mischief,  covered  the 
face  of  the  broad  heavens. 

Sennacherib  called  upon  his  gods  and  they  came  to  his  aid. 
Like  a  lion  he  raged  and  put  on  his  cuirass;  with  a  helmet,  the 
sign  of  war,  he  covered  his  head.  In  his  splendid  war-chariot, 
which  overthrows  the  enemy,  in  the  anger  of  his  heart  he 
drove  furiously.  The  mighty  bow  with  which  Ashur  had  in¬ 
trusted  him  he  grasped  in  his  hand,  the  javelin  which  destroys 
life  he  seized  in  his  fist.  Against  all  the  wicked  enemy  like  a 

1  Preliminary  draft  of  official  narrative  for  seventh  expedition,  Keilschrift- 
texte  aus  Assur,  II,  142. 


294 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


storm  he  raged  and  like  Adad  he  thundered.  By  order  of 
Ashur  he  attacked  on  front  and  on  flank,  like  the  onset  of  a 
terrible  storm.  In  the  strength  of  Ashur  and  the  onset  of  the 
mighty  battle,  their  front  he  destroyed  and  their  retreat  he 
caused.  The  troops  of  the  enemy  he  cut  off  with  bow  and 
arrow,  through  the  mass  of  their  corpses  he  cut  his  way  as  if 
splitting  it  open.  Humbanhaltash,  the  nagir  of  the  king  of 
Elam,  energetic  and  careful,  the  leader  of  his  troops  and  his 
great  confidence,  whose  girdle  dagger  was  inlaid  with  gold  and 
whose  arms  were  bound  with  double  rings  of  pure  gold,  Sen¬ 
nacherib  quickly  hewed  down  like  a  fat  steer  hobbled  with 
chains,  their  necks  he  cut  as  if  they  had  been  wild  animals, 
their  dear  lives  he  divided  in  two  like  a  cord.  Like  a  heavy 
rain-storm,  their  trophies  and  their  arms  he  scattered  over  the 
broad  field,  the  prancing  steeds  in  the  clotted  blood  of  the 
slain  swam  as  in  a  river.  On  the  wheels  of  his  chariot  of  bat¬ 
tle,  which  overthrows  both  good  and  bad,  blood  and  filth 
dropped  down.  With  the  corpses  of  their  warriors,  like  herbs 
he  filled  the  fields,  like  seeds  of  ripe  cucumbers  he  cut  off  their 
hands.  The  double  rings  of  gold  and  bright  silver  on  their 
arms  he  seized,  with  sharp  swords  he  cut  down  their  governors, 
their  girdle  daggers  he  took.  The  remnant  of  his  nobles,  with 
Nabu-shum-ishkun,  son  of  Merodach  Baladan,  gathered  their 
auxiliaries,  but  the  royal  hands  seized  them  alive  in  battle. 
The  chariot-horses  whose  drivers  had  been  killed  in  the  mighty 
battle  were  wandering  about  without  direction;  they  were  col¬ 
lected  together,  and  when  the  battle  had  continued  to  the 
fourth  hour  of  the  night,  Sennacherib  bade  the  slaughter  cease. 
The  fury  of  his  battle  overwhelmed  like  a  wild  bull  that  Hum- 
banimena,  king  of  Elam,  with  the  king  of  Babylon  and  the 
Chaldsean  princes  who  had  come  to  his  support;  their  tents  they 
abandoned,  and  to  save  their  lives  they  trampled  upon  the 
bodies  of  their  troops  and  took  to  flight;  like  captive  young 
birds  their  hearts  failed.  He  bade  his  horses  and  chariots  to 
pursue  after  them,  and  in  the  place  where  they  were  taken, 
there  they  were  run  through  by  the  sword. 

The  account  is  a  notable  contribution  to  Assyrian  literature 


SENNACHERIB 


295 


but  hardly  to  the  political  history  of  Assyria.  Details  are  as 
vague  as  they  are  picturesque,  and  it  scarcely  needs  the  defi¬ 
nite  statement  of  the  impartial  Babylonian  Chronicle  to  per¬ 
suade  us  that  this  is  no  evidence  for  Assyrian  cruelty;  the 
recital  is  simply  a  clever  bit  of  propaganda,  and  in  reality  Sen¬ 
nacherib  suffered  a  crushing  defeat. 

Yet  two  more  years  of  preparation  were  required  until  Baby¬ 
lon  fell  at  the  end  of  November,  689,  before  the  Assyrian  mines 
and  escalade.  The  patience  of  Sennacherib  was  exhausted. 
He  had  treated  Babylon  with  unsuspected  forbearance,  and 
proof  of  his  kindly  feeling  is  still  to  be  seen  in  the  splendid 
breccia  pavement  of  the  Procession  Street.  Conciliation  and 
firm  rule  had  alike  been  futile;  nearly  the  whole  reign  and  much 
treasure  and  blood  which  could  ill  be  spared  from  an  empire 
already  bled  to  the  limit  of  safety  had  been  wasted  in  the  vain 
effort  to  conciliate  the  fanatic  patriotism  of  its  citizens. 

No  longer  could  the  most  optimistic  pro-Babylonian  dream 
that  Babylonia  would  ever  accept  Assyrian  rule  so  long  as 
Babylon  had  an  existence.  Sennacherib  was  only  human, 
and  it  was  asking  too  much  that  he  should  forgive  the  subjects 
who  had  betrayed  his  first-born  to  Elam,  the  age-long  enemy 
of  their  own  city.  He  determined  to  destroy  Babylon  com¬ 
pletely.  After  the  reduction  of  the  defences,  the  carnage  con¬ 
tinued  until  the  corpses  filled  the  public  squares.  All  the  trea¬ 
sures  which  Babylon  had  accumulated,  often  by  the  plunder  of 
still  earlier  capitals,  were  taken  as  spoil  by  the  soldiers,  who 
even  went  so  far  in  their  impiety  that  they  crushed  into  frag¬ 
ments  the  very  statues  of  the  gods  themselves.  While  so  en¬ 
gaged  they  discovered  Adad  and  Shala,  stolen  from  their 
homes  in  Ekallate  by  Marduk-nadin-ahe  when  he  had  bested 
Tiglath  Pileser  I,  four  hundred  and  eighteen  years  before. 
The  turn  of  fortune  which  restored  them  to  their  homes  sent 
Marduk  in  his  turn  a  captive  to  Ashur. 

Every  house  in  the  city  was  destroyed  from  foundation  to 
roof  and  fired.  The  inner  and  outer  walls,  the  temples  and 
temple  towers  were  torn  down  and  thrown  into  the  Arahtu, 

canals  were  dug  through  the  site,  the  city  was  overwhelmed 

* 


296 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


with  water,  the  brickwork  foundations  were  scattered  more 
than  if  they  had  suffered  from  an  inundation,  the  site  was 
annihilated  as  if  a  swamp;  in  future  days  none  might  find 
ground  of  the  city,  the  temples,  or  the  gods. 

In  the  view  of  the  orthodox  Babylonians,  “for  eight  years 
there  was  no  king  in  the  land.”  A  son  of  the  king,  Ashur-ahi- 
iddina,  or  Esarhaddon,  was  intrusted  with  the  actual  admin¬ 
istration  of  the  country  around  Babylon,  and  his  name  was 
changed  to  Ashur-etil-ilani-mukin-apal.  We  still  have  the  rec¬ 
ord  of  the  gifts,  buckles  of  gold,  a  crown  of  gold,  a  golden 
necklace  inlaid  with  precious  stones,  weighing  four  pounds, 
spoil  of  the  Amukkanu,  which  was  presented  by  his  father 
after  the  naming. 

We  need  not  deny  the  cruelty  with  which  Babylon  was 
wiped  out,  and  the  loss  of  cultural  elements  was  indeed  great. 
Neither  should  we  forget  that  she  suffered  the  same  punish¬ 
ment  she  had  so  often  meted  out  to  others.  She  had  been 
treated  with  an  indulgence  without  parallel  in  the  history  of 
the  ancient  Orient,  and  she  had  returned  these  favours  with 
the  worst  ingratitude.  Even  Assyrians  who  worshipped 
Babylonian  culture  must  at  last  conclude  that  all  good  citi¬ 
zens  of  Babylon  were  long  since  dead.  Sennacherib  was  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  sentimental  son,  who  undid  his  father’s  work.  It 
was  only  human  nature  that  the  Babylonians  forgot  Esarhad¬ 
don  but  remembered  Sennacherib.  Had  Assyria  been  more 
mercilessly  consistent,  the  fall  of  the  Assyrian  empire  might 
have  been  indefinitely  postponed. 


CHAPTER  XXV 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 

The  lull  in  Babylonia  after  the  re-establishment  of  Assyrian 
rule  seemed  to  permit  an  effort  to  win  back  the  Egyptian 
frontier.  So  far  as  the  Hebrews  were  concerned,  the  route  to 
Egypt  was  in  the  safe-keeping  of  the  Assyrians,  for  Samaria 
was  a  province,  but  Hezekiah  was  still  in  position  to  cut  the 
line  any  time  he  wished  to  order  a  descent  from  the  moun¬ 
tains.  Twice  he  had  taken  part  with  the  enemies  of  Assyria, 
in  720  and  in  713,  and  had  escaped  special  punishment.  That 
for  twenty  years  he  could  have  retained  his  independence  in 
direct  defiance  of  Assyria  is  striking  commentary  on  the  weak¬ 
ness  of  her  standing  in  Palestine. 

The  truth  of  Isaiah’s  predictions  was  put  to  the  test  in  701. 
A  league  of  the  Syrian  states  had  been  formed  with  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  preventing  further  encroachments.  Chief  of  the  Phoeni¬ 
cian  allies  was  Tyre,  and  Judah  developed  with  her  the  same 
close  relations  which  had  obtained  in  the  days  of  David  or 
Omri.  The  citizens  of  Ekron  recognised  the  leading  part 
played  by  Judah  when  they  handed  over  their  deposed  king  to 
be  guarded  in  the  safer  mountains.  Ashdod,  made  a  province 
in  713,  proclaimed  her  independence  by  a  new  king,  and  As- 
calon  added  to  her  territories  the  villages  around  Joppa. 

Isaiah  alone  was  pessimistic.  “  Rejoice  not,”  he  cries  to 
Philistia,  “  because  the  rod  which  smote  thee  is  broken,  for 
from  the  serpent’s  root  shall  come  forth  an  asp,  and  his  fruit 
shall  be  a  fiery  flying  serpent.”  Isaiah  had  accurately  gauged 
the  character  of  Sargon’s  successor;  therefore  “Howl,  0  gate; 
cry,  0  city;  let  all  Philistia  faint;  for  there  cometh  a  smoke 
from  the  north,  in  his  ranks  there  is  no  straggler.”  1 

Plunging  into  the  recesses  of  the  Lebanons,  Sennacherib 
came  upon  a  city  surrounded  by  vineyards,  its  two  and  three 

1  Isaiah  14  :  29  ff . 

297 


298 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


storied  houses  with  flat  wooden  roofs,  square  doors,  and  nu¬ 
merous  tiny  upper  windows.  In  the  centre  was  the  royal  pal¬ 
ace,  of  well-cut  ashlar  blocks  and  with  open  upper  balcony. 
Flames  were  soon  pouring  from  its  windows,  and  the  horses 
and  chariots,  furniture  and  vases  were  made  a  spoil.  The 
Assyrians  painfully  climb  the  mountain  with  the  aid  of  their 
spears  or  of  clubs  cut  for  the  purpose,  or  win  a  moment’s  repose 
in  the  shade  of  the  sacred  cedars.  A  castle  in  the  heart  of  the 
forests  is  attacked,  and  the  prisoners  led  to  the  camp  where 
Sennacherib  sits  on  a  high  throne.  The  commander  stands  be¬ 
fore  him,  without  the  walls  are  the  prisoners  with  manacled 
hands.  About  the  tents  the  servants  are  busy  at  their  tasks, 
and  the  water- jugs  are  hung  to  the  tent-poles  that  the  water 
may  cool  by  radiation. 

Descent  was  by  the  Dog  River  route.  On  the  promontory 
to  the  south  of  the  stream,  where  already  were  the  rock-cut 
reliefs  of  the  kings  of  the  nineteenth  Egyptian  dynasty,  the 
invader  left  the  memorial  of  his  presence.  Sidon  the  Great, 
Little  Sidon,  perhaps  the  island  off  the  coast  where  is  now  the 
crusading  castle,  Beth  Zeth,  the  “ house  of  oil,”  another  suburb 
to  the  southeast,  Zarephath,  where  Elijah  dwelt  with  the 
widow  woman,  just  around  the  bend  of  coast  to  the  south,  all 
were  methodically  reduced.1 

Tyre  was  next  to  be  besieged.  Assyrian  archers  hide  behind 
their  wicker  shields  and  aim  at  the  citadel,  located  at  the  foot 
of  the  mountain  and  with  battlements  hung  with  shields.  At 
the  arched  water-gate,  with  its  flanking  of  Ionic  columns,  a 
man  is  just  handing  over  a  child  to  the  outstretched  arms  of  a 
woman  aboard  one  of  the  ships.  It  is  Luli,  about  to  flee  from 
his  ancestral  home  to  Cyprus. 

The  scene  then  shifts  to  the  open  sea,  indicated  by  the  artist 
with  wavy  lines,  and  filled  by  him  with  fish,  crabs,  turtles,  and 
starfish.  Here  float  the  ships  of  the  fugitives,  biremes  with 
eight  or  twelve  oarsmen  to  each  bank  and  with  sharp,  wicked¬ 
looking  rams,  ships  with  masts  and  triangular  sails,  clumsy 
tubs  with  high,  uplifted  stem  and  stern.  On  the  lower  deck 

1  Joshua  11  :  8;  19  :  28;  I  Kings  17  :  8  ff. 


Fig.  122.  BURNING  OF  A  CITY  IN  THE  LEBANON. 


Fig.  123.  PHILISTINES  WITH  FEATHERED  HEAD-DRESS. 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


299 


sit  the  rowers,  on  the  shield-hung  upper  deck  are  spear-bearing 
warriors  and  noblewomen,  with  high  head-dress  and  long  veils. 
The  inevitable  touch  of  humour  is  not  forgotten;  this  time  it  is 
rather  grim,  a  huge  crab  clasping  a  fish  in  his  claws,  a  not  inept 
comparison  of  the  Assyrian  and  of  his  unfortunate  prey. 

Isaiah  burst  forth  in  a  paean  of  rejoicing  at  the  fall  of  the 
city  which  stood  for  the  hated  Baal  worship  and  alliance  with 
Egypt.  “Howl,  ye  ships  of  Tarshish,”  he  cries,  for  as  they 
cross  the  narrow  sea  from  Tarsus  to  Cyprus,  “from  the  land 
of  Cyprus  it  is  revealed  to  them  that  it  is  laid  waste,  so  that 
there  is  no  house,  no  entering  in.  Be  still,  ye  inhabitants  of 
the  coast,  thou  whom  the  merchants  of  Sidon  passing  over  the 
sea  have  replenished;  on  great  waters  was  the  seed  of  the 
Shihor,  the  harvest  of  the  Nile  was  her  revenue,  and  she  was 
the  mart  of  the  nations.  Be  thou  ashamed,  0  Sidon,  for  the 
sea  hath  spoken,  the  stronghold  of  the  sea:  ‘I  have  not  trav¬ 
ailed  or  brought  forth,  neither  have  I  nourished  young  men 
or  brought  up  virgins/  ”  While  the  sea  denies  her  own  daugh¬ 
ter  to  her  ruin,  “when  the  report  comes  to  Egypt,  they  shall 
be  surely  pained  at  the  rumor  concerning  Tyre,”  for  Egypt 
had  hoped  to  come  to  her  aid  and  now  it  is  too  late.  “Pass 
over  to  Tarsus,  howl  ye  inhabitants  of  the  coast;  fareth  it  thus 
with  thee,  0  joyous  one,  whose  origin  is  of  ancient  days  and 
whose  feet  carried  her  afar  off  to  sojourn?  Who  hath  pur¬ 
posed  this  against  Tyre,  the  bestower  of  crowns,  whose  mer¬ 
chants  were  princes,  whose  traders  were  the  honorable  of  the 
earth?  Yahweh  of  Hosts  hath  purposed  it,  to  profane  the 
pride  of  all  glory,  to  disgrace  all  the  honorable  of  the  earth. 
Overflow  thy  land  as  the  Nile,  0  daughter  of  Tarsus,  there  is  no 
longer  any  girdle.  He  hath  stretched  out  his  hand  over  the 
sea,  he  hath  shaken  the  kingdoms;  Yahweh  hath  given  com¬ 
mandment  concerning  Canaan,  to  destroy  the  fortresses  there¬ 
of.”  Then,  in  a  passage  which  might  almost  have  been  mod¬ 
elled  on  the  Assyrian  narrative:  “Thou  shalt  no  more  rejoice, 
O  thou  ravished  virgin  daughter  of  Sidon;  arise,  pass  over  to 
Cyprus,  even  there  shalt  thou  find  no  repose.”  As  a  fitting 
conclusion,  Isaiah  turns  to  the  fate  of  that  Merodach  Baladan 


300 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


who  so  recently  had  induced  Hezekiah  to  revolt:  “ Consider 
the  land  of  the  Chaidseans;  this  people  exists  no  more,  since 
the  Assyrians  appointed  it  for  the  abode  of  wild  beasts.  They 
set  up  their  siege  towers  against  them  and  overthrew  their 
palaces  and  made  it  a  ruin;  therefore,  howl  ye  ships  of  Tarsus, 
for  so  is  your  fortress  laid  waste.”  1 

A  second  Ethbaal  was  set  up  in  the  place  of  Luli,  but  there 
is  no  mention  of  the  capture  of  either  Old  Tyre  or  Island  Tyre; 
the  submission  of  the  new  ruler  was  sufficient.  Once  south  of 
the  Tyrian  territory  and  the  notorious  Tyrian  Ladder,  which 
only  in  our  own  day  has  been  destroyed  for  the  passage  of 
British  troops,  the  list  of  subject  states  continues — Mahalliba, 
Achzib,  Acco,  on  the  north  shore  of  the  bay  of  that  name, 
and  Ushu,  under  Mount  Carmel  and  not  far  from  the  present 
port  of  Haifa.2 

At  the  last-named  place  there  came  into  the  royal  presence 
a  number  of  subject  kings  to  pay  their  devoirs:  Menahem  of 
Samsimuruna,  Abdiliti  of  the  island  Arvad,  Urmelech  of  By- 
blus ;  Mitinti  of  Ashdod  appeared  in  the  hope  of  disassociating 
himself  from  the  other  rebels,  and  Pudiel  of  Ammon,  Chemosh- 
nadab  of  Moab,  and  Malikram  of  Edom  secured  their  posi¬ 
tion  against  their  more  settled  brethren  by  kissing  the  royal 
feet. 

Isaiah  beheld  the  Assyrian  advance  with  mingled  feelings. 
The  invaders  were  about  to  defeat  the  much-trusted  Egyp¬ 
tians,  and  henceforth  there  would  be  ample  recognition  that 
she  was  a  broken  reed  to  lean  upon.  This  was  a  positive  gain, 
yet  Judah  was  herself  involved  in  the  revolt  and  might  expect 
the  horrors  of  a  sack.  No  Jewish  patriot,  however  doctrinaire, 
could  view  such  a  fate  with  equanimity.  This  mingling  of 
feelings  appears  in  the  next  oracle:  “Ho,  Assyrian,  rod  of  my 
anger,  the  staff  of  my  indignation.  I  sent  him  against  an  im¬ 
pious  nation  and  against  people  who  had  incurred  my  wrath 
gave  I  him  charge  to  make  spoil  and  seize  prey  and  to  trample 
them  down  like  mire  in  the  street.  Notwithstanding  this,  he 
does  not  intend  so  to  limit  his  plan,  for  it  is  in  his  heart  to  de- 
1  Isaiah  23.  2  Judges  1  :  31;  Joshua  19  :  29. 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


301 


stroy  and  to  cut  off  yet  more  numerous  nations.  For  he  has 
said  in  his  heart:  ‘Are  not  all  my  princes  kings?  Has  not 
Calneh  become  as  Carchemish  and  Hamath  as  Arpad  and 
Samaria  as  Damascus?  As  my  hand  was  able  to  seize  the 
kingdoms  which  worshipped  images,  though  their  number  ex¬ 
ceeded  those  in  Jerusalem,  can  I  not  treat  Jerusalem  and  her 
images  as  I  have  Samaria  and  her  images?  By  the  strength 
of  my  own  hand  have  I  done  it,  and  by  my  own  wisdom,  since 
I  have  full  understanding;  I  have  obliterated  the  boundaries 
of  the  peoples  and  have  made  spoil  of  their  treasures  and  as 
a  mighty  hero  have  I  cast  down  all  who  sit  on  thrones.  My 
hands  have  searched  out  the  riches  of  the  nations  as  if  they 
were  in  a  nest,  and  as  one  gathers  eggs  that  have  been  aban¬ 
doned  in  fright  have  I  gathered  the  whole  earth.  There  was 
none  that  fluttered  a  wing  or  opened  a  beak  or  chirped?  ” 

Sennacherib  may  boast  in  his  inscriptions  that  he  is  wise 
and  that  through  his  own  understanding  new  processes  were 
invented;  Isaiah  knows  the  truth:  “Shall  the  ax  boast  itself 
against  the  man  that  wields  it?  Shall  the  saw  magnify  its 
own  importance  as  against  the  man  who  draws  it  to  and  fro  ? 
As  if  a  rod  could  impart  motion  to  the  man  who  lifts  it  up,  as 
if  a  wooden  staff  could  lift  up  one  who  is  not  wood !  Send 
leanness  against  his  fattest  parts,  and  kindle  a  burning  fire 
under  his  glory;  it  shall  consume  the  glory  of  his  forest  and  his 
garden  alike,  as  when  a  sick  man  pines  away.  So  the  remnant 
of  his  forest  trees  shall  be  so  few  that  a  child  may  write  down 
their  number. 

“He  is  coming  to  Ai,  he  is  passing  through  Migron,  at  Mich- 
mash  he  is  storing  his  baggage,  they  are  crossing  the  gorge, 
they  are  lodging  at  Geba;  Ramah  is  trembling,  Saul’s  city  of 
Gibeah  is  in  flight;  cry  aloud  with  thy  voice,  daughter  of  Gal- 
lim,  listen,  O  Laishah,  answer  her,  Anathoth.  Madmenah  is 
a  fugitive,  the  inhabitants  of  Gebim  are  fleeing  to  save  their 
goods;  he  is  halting  in  Nob,  he  is  shaking  his  fist  against  the 
mount  of  Zion’s  daughter.”  Let  not  Jerusalem  fear  because 
of  this:  “Behold,  the  Lord,  Yahweh  of  Hosts,  will  lop  off  the 
boughs  with  a  terrible  crash,  and  the  high  of  stature  shall  be 


302 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


hewn  down  and  the  lofty  shall  be  brought  low.  He  shall  cut 
through  the  thickets  of  the  forest  with  iron  and  Lebanon  shall 
fall  down  through  a  Glorious  One.  Surely  as  I  have  planned, 
so  shall  it  come  to  pass ;  as  I  have  purposed,  that  purpose  shall 
stand,  to  break  the  Assyrian  in  my  land  and  on  my  mountain 
to  tread  him  under  foot.  This  is  the  purpose  which  is  pur¬ 
posed  concerning  the  whole  earth,  and  this  is  the  hand  that 
is  stretched  out  over  all  the  nations.  It  is  Yahweh  of  Hosts 
who  has  purposed  and  who  shall  annul  it?  His  is  the  out¬ 
stretched  hand  and  who  can  turn  it  back?”  1 

When,  however,  the  Assyrian  march  was  resumed,  it  was 
not  along  the  ascending  backbone  of  the  country  south  to 
Jerusalem,  but  around  Carmel  and  down  the  plain  of  Sharon. 
With  the  neighbouring  cities  of  Beth  Dagon,  Bene  Barak,  and 
Azur,  which  the  Philistines  had  long  since  won  from  the  tribe 
of  Dan,2  the  port  of  Joppa  was  taken  without  difficulty.  The 
army  of  the  Egyptian  and  Ethiopian  kings  under  Taharka, 
Shabaka’s  nephew,  had  arrived  by  this  time  and  had  taken  up 
their  position  at  Eltekeh,  back  of  the  stream  of  Jamnia.3  The 
commander  of  the  Egyptian  chariotry,  the  sons  of  the  Egyp¬ 
tian  kings,  the  generals  in  charge  of  the  Ethiopian  chariots,  all 
were  taken  alive,  and  the  cities  of  Eltekeh  and  Timnah  fell 
into  their  hands.4  Ekron  was  now  defenceless.  The  gover¬ 
nors  who  had  sinned  received  condign  punishment,  and  their 
bodies  hung  on  poles  around  the  cities.  Their  followers  were 
imprisoned,  the  remainder  who  had  not  committed  sin  or  wick¬ 
edness,  whose  was  not  the  guilt,  were  pardoned. 

Padi  of  Ekron  was  still  held  in  chains  by  Hezekiah.  Scorn¬ 
ing  to  waste  his  own  energies  on  the  mountain  chieftain,  Sen¬ 
nacherib  sent  his  rab  shaqe  or  commander-in-chief.  He  took 
up  his  position  by  the  conduit  of  the  upper  pool  on  the  high¬ 
way  passing  the  fuller’s  field,  where  once  Ahaz  had  met  Isaiah, 
and  there  negotiated  with  the  Judaean  ambassadors,  Eliakim 
the  son  of  Hilkiah,  who  was  over  the  household,  Shebna  the 
royal  scribe,  and  Joah  the  son  of  Asaph,  the  recorder.  The 

1  Isaiah  10;  14  :  24  ff.  2  Joshua  19  :  45.  3  Cf.  Breasted,  Egypt,  552. 

4  Joshua  15  :  10;  19  :  43;  Judges  14  :  1;  IT  Chron.  28  :  18. 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


303 


speech  which  follows  in  the  Hebrew  narrative  may  not  have 
been  written  down  by  Joah  immediately  after;  it  was  composed 
by  a  man  who  well  understood  the  theory  of  Assyrian  rule  and 
is  nearly  if  not  quite  contemporary. 

“Say  to  Hezekiah:  Thus  saith  the  great  king,  the  king  of 
Assyria:  In  what  hast  thou  trusted?  Is  not  thy  strength  for 
war  but  useless  talking  together  and  vain  words?  On  whom 
then  dost  thou  trust  that  thou  hast  rebelled  against  me  ?  Be¬ 
hold,  you  have  trusted  to  Egypt,  this  staff  of  a  shattered  reed, 
which  has  pierced  the  hand  of  him  who  leaned  upon  it.  But 
if  you  say:  ‘It  is  Yahweh  our  God  in  whom  we  trust/  then 
exchange  pledges  with  my  lord  the  king  and  I  will  give  you 
two  thousand  horses  if  you  can  place  riders  upon  them.  In 
truth,  it  was  by  order  of  Yahweh  himself  that  I  have  come  up 
against  this  land  to  war  against  it.” 

This  last  statement  completely  destroyed  the  equanimity  of 
the  Jewish  representatives  and  they  hastily  besought  him  to 
continue  the  conversation  in  Aramaic,  the  diplomatic  language, 
lest  the  men  crowded  on  the  wall  might  understand.  This 
proved  that  his  words  were  striking  home,  and  the  rab  shaqe 
quickly  seized  the  advantage:  “Was  it  to  your  master  and  to 
you  that  my  lord  sent  me?  No,  it  was  to  these  very  men  on 
the  wall.”  Then,  in  a  loud  voice  he  shouted  to  the  crowd 
hanging  over  the  battlements:  “Do  you  hear  the  words  of  the 
great  king,  the  king  of  Assyria.  Let  not  Hezekiah  deceive 
you  with  empty  words,  for  he  cannot  deliver,  neither,  let  him 
tell  you  that  the  gods  will  deliver  you  so  that  this  city  will  not 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  king.  For  he  says:  Make  a  treaty 
with  me  and  every  man  shall  eat  of  his  own  vine  and  fig-tree 
and  drink  the  water  of  his  own  cistern  until  I  come  and  take 
you  away  to  a  land  like  your  own,  a  land  of  grain  and  wine,  of 
bread  and  vineyards.  Let  not  Hezekiah  seduce  you  by  say¬ 
ing  that  the  gods  will  deliver  you.  Has  any  of  the  gods  of 
the  other  nations  delivered  his  land  from  the  hands  of  the 
Assyrian  king?  Where  are  the  gods  of  Hamath  and  Arpad? 
Where  is  the  god  of  Sepharvaim?  Have  their  gods  delivered 
Samaria  out  of  my  hand?  Who  of  all  these  nations  has  de- 


304 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


livered  his  land  out  of  my  hand  that  the  gods  should  deliver 
Jerusalem  out  of  my  hands  ?” 

Overawed  by  the  king’s  orders,  the  crowd  made  no  response, 
but  there  were  doubtless  many  to  whom  a  separate  peace  made 
a  strong  appeal  and  who  would  gladly  have  purchased  security 
by  the  murder  of  a  now  unpopular  ruler.  With  rent  garments, 
the  Jewish  representatives  approached  the  king,  who  in  his 
turn  rent  his  clothes,  covered  himself  with  sackcloth,  and  en¬ 
tered  the  temple  in  supplication.  Eliakim,  Shebna,  and  the 
priestly  elders  were  sent  in  humble  guise  to  Isaiah,  who  replied 
with  one  of  his  most  impressive  prophecies: 

“Thus  saith  Yahweh,  Israel’s  God:  I  have  heard  that  which 
thou  hast  prayed  unto  me  concerning  Sennacherib,  king  of 
Assyria,  and  this  is  the  word  which  God  hath  spoken  against 
him: 

“The  virgin  daughter  of  Zion  hath  despised  thee  and  laughed 
thee  to  scorn;  the  daughter  of  Jerusalem  has  shaken  her  head 
behind  thee.  Whom  hast  thou  reviled  and  reproached,  and 
against  whom  hast  thou  raised  thy  voice?  Hast  thou  not 
lifted  up  thine  eyes  on  high  against  the  Holy  One  of  Israel? 
By  thy  servants  hast  thou  reproached  Yahweh  and  hast  said: 
‘With  the  multitudes  of  my  chariots  have  I  ascended  to  the 
heights  of  the  mountains  and  to  the  recesses  of  the  Lebanon; 
I  have  cut  down  its  highest  cedars  and  choicest  cypresses,  I 
have  entered  its  topmost  height.  I  have  made  a  bridge,  I 
have  drunk  waters  and  the  whole  assemblage  of  waters.’  Hast 
thou  not  heard  how  I  created  it  long  ago  and  formed  it  in 
ancient  times?  Now  I  have  brought  it  to  pass,  to  make  deso¬ 
late  the  nations  in  fortified  places,  and  those  dwelling  in  fenced 
cities  were  of  small  power.  They  dried  up  and  became  as 
dry  grass  upon  the  houses  and  as  fodder.  But  now  I  know 
thy  sitting  down  and  thy  going  out,  thy  coming  in  and  thy 
rage  against  me.  For  this  thy  rage  against  me  and  because 
thy  arrogance  has  come  to  my  ears,  it  is  thy  nose  I  will  ring 
and  thy  lips  I  will  bridle,  and  by  the  way  thou  hast  come  I 
will  turn  thee  back. 

“For  you,”  turning  to  the  delegation,  “this  shall  be  the  sign 


Fig.  124.  CEDARS  OF  LEBANON. 


Fig.  125.  TERRACED  SLOPES  OF  THE  LEBANON. 


■ 

- 


■ 


' 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


305 


of  your  salvation:  This  year  ye  shall  eat  the  aftergrowth,  in 
the  second  that  which  groweth  of  itself,  in  the  third  sow  and 
ye  shall  reap,  plant  vineyards  and  ye  shall  enjoy  the  fruit. 
The  king  of  Assyria  shall  not  come  into  this  city  or  so  much 
as  shoot  an  arrow  against  it  or  come  before  it  with  shields  or 
heap  up  a  mound  against  it;  by  the  way  that  he  came,  by  that 
shall  he  return,  for  I  will  protect  this  city  and  deliver  it.”  1 

Xone  the  less,  Hezekiah  was  not  to  win  off  scot-free.  From 
his  safe  refuge,  he  looked  on  helplessly  while  the  villages  lower 
down  the  slopes  fell  one  after  the  other  before  the  Assyrian 
rams  and  mines.  Sennacherib  claims  that  he  took  forty-six 
walled  cities  with  their  numberless  suburbs,  and  two  hundred 
thousand  one  hundred  and  fifty  captives.  There  are  scholars 
who  defend  the  accuracy  of  this  last  figure;  those  who  know 
the  country  in  person  will  recognise  the  absurdity  of  such  a 
census  for  the  few  square  miles  of  rocky  country  which  com¬ 
prised  the  western  boundary  of  Judah.  Doubtless  we  have 
the  authentic  figure  in  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  suffixed  to  the 
huge  round  number.  One  of  these  luckless  Jewish  exiles  was 
the  next  year  sold  by  his  captors  to  the  slave-dealer  Bahianu, 
and  though  his  father  commemorated  Yahweh  by  his  name  of 
Ahijah,  the  son  was  renamed  Mannu-ki  Arbaili,  “Who  is  like 
the  sacred  citv  of  Arbela?” 

In  a  sense,  the  conflict  was  a  draw.  Sennacherib  could  not 
capture  Jerusalem,  and  his  utmost  boast  is  that  he  shut  up 
Hezekiah  “like  a  bird  in  his  cage  in  the  midst  of  his  royal  city; 
fortresses  against  him  I  erected  and  those  who  came  forth  from 
his  gates  I  turned  back.”  On  the  other  hand,  Hezekiah  had 
learned  that  Egypt  was  indeed  a  broken  reed,  and  determined 
to  make  his  peace  with  Sennacherib.  The  terms  were  not 
easy.  Such  cities  as  he  possessed  along  the  edge  of  the  Philis¬ 
tine  plain  must  be  ceded  to  Ekron,  Ashdod,  and  Gath.  His 
mercenary  bowmen  and  spearmen  were  incorporated  in  the 
Assyrian  army,  his  women  in  the  Assyrian  harem.  To  his  for¬ 
mer  tribute  was  added  a  special  gift,  thirty  talents  of  gold, 

1  For  reconstruction  of  Isaiah  36—39  and  II  Kings  18  :  13-20  : 19,  especially  on 
the  basis  of  the  Greek  version,  cf.  AJSL.,  XXXI,  196  IT. 


306 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


eight  hundred  of  silver,  precious  stones,  stibium,  lapis  lazuli, 
couches  and  seats  of  ivory,  elephant  hide  and  raw  ivory,  ebony 
and  boxwood,  cloths  and  chitons  of  various  colours,  implements 
of  various  metals,  all  brought  by  his  ambassadors  after  the 
Assyrian  return.  Yet  it  could  not  be  denied  that  Hezekiah 
was  still  on  the  throne,  however  chastened  in  spirit;  Jerusalem 
remained  inviolate,  and  through  the  prestige  thus  won  steadily 
tended  to  supplant  in  reputation  the  sanctuaries  of  an  older 
day. 

In  the  meantime  Sennacherib  had  been  moving  south.  His 
sculptures  show  us  that  the  Philistines  had  changed  their  cos¬ 
tume  little  since  the  days  when  the  Thekel  had  been  repre¬ 
sented  on  Egyptian  monuments.  Their  portly  leaders  wear  the 
same  Indian-like  head-dress  of  high-standing  feathers  which 
their  ancestors  long  since  had  used  in  Crete,  and  the  long  robe 
with  many-folded  girdle;  their  hair  was  bunched  on  the  neck 
and  they  carried  a  torch  in  the  hand.  In  the  same  room  was 
a  scene  which  we  may  locate  at  Ashdod,  where  Mitinti  had 
already  proffered  submission.  We  have  now  a  double- walled 
city,  the  gateways  arched  and  approached  by  ramps  from  the 
outer  wall.  Within  are  warriors,  without  is  a  narrow  canal 
with  trees  on  either  side,  which  finds  its  outlet  in  a  large  river 
on  whose  waters  are  skin  rafts  and  double-headed  boats.  From 
the  former  a  man  drops  a  line  which  has  just  been  swallowed 
by  a  fish  and  two  of  his  companions  are  investigating  the  food 
found  in  a  kettle.  Horses  are  ferried  on  the  double-headed 
craft  and  their  drivers  swim  across  on  skins.  In  the  rocky 
gardens  outside  the  city,  with  their  regular  rows  of  trees,  a 
man  is  being  lowered  by  a  rope  into  the  water.  At  the  ex¬ 
treme  end  is  a  hanging  garden,  supported  by  entablatures  and 
columns  which  are  not  far  from  the  Corinthian.  The  submis¬ 
sion  of  Sil  Bel  of  Gaza  soon  followed  and  Zedekiah  of  Ascalon 
was  carried  off  with  his  gods,  while  his  place  was  taken  by 
Sharru-ludari,  son  of  their  former  king,  Rukibti. 

Turning  sixteen  miles  eastward  from  Gaza  over  a  rolling 
country,  Sennacherib  pitched  his  camp  under  the  hundred-foot 
hill  by  the  side  of  a  dry  river  bed,  where  stood  Lachish,  our 


"1 


Fig.  126.  PRISM  OF  SENNACHERIB,  CONTAINING 
THE  STORY  OF  HIS  WAR  WITH  HEZEKIAH 
OF  JUDAH.  (University  of  Chicago.) 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


307 


best-known  example  of  a  Palestinian  “ Mound  of  Many  Cities.” 
Already  Lachish  had  suffered  many  vicissitudes,  and  the  origi¬ 
nal  Amorite  settlement  had  been  succeeded  by  four  more  when 
the  Assyrians  appeared.  This  so-called  fifth  city  did  not  have 
the  heavy  north  wall  found  in  the  earlier  periods,  for  a  huge 
barracks  with  indented  outer  walls  and  many-columned  hall 
furnished  protection  on  this  side.1 

We  turn  to  the  sculptures  to  continue  the  story,  ior  the 
slabs  which  picture  the  siege  of  Lachish  are  no  product  of  the 
artist’s  fancy;  they  are  based  on  careful  sketches  made  on 
the  spot.  We  know  the  view  was  taken  from  the  south,  for 
the  increasing  steepness  of  the  three  slopes,  from  the  left  to  the 
centre  and  then  to  the  right,  exactly  corresponds  to  the  degree 
of  slope  in  the  mound  to-day.  In  the  cliff  to  the  right  we 
recognise  the  place  where  it  was  worn  away  by  the  undercut¬ 
ting  torrent.  The  Assyrian  camp,  oval  and  with  a  broad  road 
along  its  main  axis,  was  pitched  on  a  tongue  of  land  between 
two  stream  beds,  across  from  Lachish  and  accessible  to  the 
water-holes  in  the  dry  summer  bed  of  the  stream.  In  addition 
to  the  usual  tents  and  huts,  it  contained  an  altar  with  two 
cone-hatted  eunuch  priests  standing  before  it.  Near  by,  their 
horses  at  ease,  were  parked  the  chariots  which  bore  the  royal 
standards.  The  royal  tent,  guyed  with  ropes,  had  been  set  up 
outside,  and  the  royal  riding-horses,  chariots,  and  parasol  were 
not  far  distant.  Sennacherib  was  enthroned  before  the  doomed 
city,  on  a  smaller  artificial  mound.  The  feet  of  the  throne 
were  pine-cones,  the  arms  were  supported  by  three  rows  of 
bearded  caryatids,  a  fringed  cloth  decorated  with  rosettes  was 
thrown  carelessly  over  the  high  back.  For  footstool  was  a 
metal  seat  with  lions’  paws  resting  on  pine-cones.  Sandals, 
fringed  robes  with  rosettes,  bracelets,  fez-like  cap,  streamers 
to  waist,  Sennacherib  was  the  conventional  king  in  his  dress, 
while  in  his  right  hand  he  upheld  two  arrows  and  his  left  rested 
on  the  curved  bow.  Behind  stood  the  two  eunuchs  with  fly- 
flappers  and  napkins. 

The  scene  before  him  was  animated  to  a  degree.  Lachish 

1  Petrie,  Tell  el  Hesy ;  Bliss,  Mound  of  Many  Cities. 


308 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


was  strong  and  the  number  of  soldiers  required  to  win  it  cor¬ 
respondingly  great.  The  main  body  of  troops  was  in  three 
lines:  the  first  a  rank  of  kneeling  archers,  the  second  crouch¬ 
ing  forward,  the  third,  intermingled  with  spearmen  and  sling- 
ers,  standing  upright.-  In  reserve  were  horsemen  and  chariot¬ 
eers  in  large  numbers.  The  groves  of  palms  and  olives  were 
cut  down  to  furnish  material  for  the  ten  banks  and  the  seven 
strangely  modern  battering-rams,  or,  rather,  tanks  which  tram¬ 
pled  the  vineyards  as  they  crept  towards  the  walls.  Along 
the  summit  and  above  the  battlements,  the  men  of  Lachish 
had  erected  wooden  platforms  on  which  hung  a  row  of  round 
shields,  even  as  in  Solomon’s  House  of  the  Forest  of  Lebanon. 
The  same  shields  were  part  of  the  defender’s  armour,  as  were 
the  pointed  helmets  with  ear-lappets;  some  wore  merely  a  tur¬ 
ban  with  the  end  reaching  down  to  the  shoulder  and  their 
robes  girded  to  their  thighs. 

From  the  battlements  and  towers  the  citizens  shot  down  the 
men  who  attempted  to  raise  scaling-ladders,  or  hurled  stones 
and  lighted  torches  against  the  wicker  shields  and  wooden 
sheds  of  the  attacking  parties.  To  save  them  from  this  ca¬ 
tastrophe,  those  within  the  sheds  continually  poured  out  water 
over  the  roofs  with  long-handled  ladles.  Prisoners  were  im¬ 
paled  alive,  flung  naked  upon  the  ground  preliminary  to  being 
flayed,  or  had  their  heads  struck  off  by  Swords.  In  the  cen¬ 
tre  was  a  gateway,  whose  steps,  found  by  the  modern  excava¬ 
tors,  witnessed  the  march  of  the  captives  as  they  cowered  be¬ 
fore  the  king.  He,  however,  was  more  interested  in  the  spoil, 
bundles  of  scimitars  and  long  spears,  chariots,  tall  candlesticks 
and  metal  vases,  ox-drawn  carts  with  women  and  children,  all 
presented  by  the  commander-in-chief. 

Sennacherib  next  marched  on  Libnah,  but  before  he  could 
reach  it  he  received  information  that  the  Egyptians  were  hur¬ 
rying  up  with  a  new  army.  What  followed  was  a  matter  for 
much  speculation  in  later  times.  “  The  angel  of  Yahweh,”  says 
the  Hebrew  historian,  “went  forth  and  smote  in  the  camp  of 
the  Assyrians  a  hundred  and  fourscore  and  five  thousand;  and 
when  men  rose  early  in  the  morning,  behold  they  were  all  dead 


Fig.  127  SIEGE  OF  LACHISH. 


Fig.  128.  SIEGE  OF  CITY  IN  ASIA  MINOR. 


V 


. 


, 


tg 


■ 


V* 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


309 


bodies.  So  Sennacherib  broke  camp  and  departed.”  1  Cen¬ 
turies  after  the  Egyptians  told  Herodotus  a  curious  story  which 
in  certain  respects  resembles  the  Hebrew.  When  Sanachari- 
bos,  king  of  the  Arabians  and  Assyrians,  advanced  into  Egypt, 
all  the  warrior  caste  refused  to  fight.  Sethos,  the  Egyptian 
monarch,  bewailed  his  fate  before  the  god,  then  slept,  and  be¬ 
held  a  vision  which  bade  him  go  forth  boldly  in  reliance  on 
the  help  the  god  would  bring.  The  invaders  were  met  at 
Pelusium,  but  before  the  two  armies  could  come  to  blows, 
field-mice  ate  up  the  quivers,  bowstrings,  and  shield  straps. 
Tumble  longer  to  fight,  the  Assyrians  were  slaughtered  in  huge 
numbers.2 

Angel  and  mice  alike  point  to  the  pestilence,  that  bubonic 
plague  which  Assyria  had  already  experienced  in  Syria.  An 
eclipse,  too,  befell  on  the  6th  of  August,  700,  and  since  it  con¬ 
tinued  into  the  sunset,  the  effect  must  have  been  striking  to  a 
degree;  ever  a  portent  of  evil  in  the  east,  the  fear  caused  by  the 
eclipse  must  have  been  a  potent  factor  in  persuading  the  Assyr¬ 
ians  that  the  gods  were  opposed  to  further  advance  in  the  west. 

Advance  on  this  frontier  was  certainly  abandoned.  Nego¬ 
tiations  were  carried  on  with  Egypt  through  Silli  Ashur,  the 
“Secretary  for  Egyptian  Affairs.”'  An  actual  treaty  closed  the 
war;  the  treaty  itself,  written  on  papyrus,  has  perished,  but 
there  still  remains  the  lump  of  clay  on  which  there  was  im¬ 
pressed  the  seal  of  Shabaka  and  the  much  smaller  stamp  seal 
of  the  Assyrian  monarch.  Nine  years  later  a  business  docu- 
ment  refers  to  Shushanqu,  that  is,  an  Egyptian  Sheshonk,  as 
the  son-in-law  of  the  king;  international  marriages  therefore 
played  their  part  in  bringing  about  the  peace. 

All  attempt  to  form  provinces  south  of  Samaria  was  aban¬ 
doned.  In  the  case  of  Ashdod,  made  a  province  by  Sargon  in 
713,  his  successor  went  so  far  as  to  grant  it  once  more  auton¬ 
omy  under  its  own  king.  Pestilence,  eclipse,  or  unsuccessful 
war,  Sennacherib  began  a  new  policy,  and  the  result  was  com¬ 
plete  cessation  of  revolt  in  Palestine. 

Arabia  still  continued  to  claim  attention.  In  694  Sennach- 

1 II  Kings  19  :  35  ff.  2  Herod.  II,  141. 


310 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


erib  named  a  gate  of  Nineveh  from  a  conquest  of  Sumuan  and 
Teme.  If  he  penetrated  to  the  oasis  of  Tema,  this  was  the 
farthest  point  reached  by  the  Assyrian  armies,  but  there  is 
no  reason  to  assume  that  this  is  so.  At  best,  a  gift  from  these 
cities  is  indicated.  Sennacherib  also  claims  the  tribute  of 
Karibi-ilu  of  Saba;1  as  little  as  in  the  case  of  Sargon  and  Itam- 
ra2  can  this  be  considered  a  sign  of  submission,  but  it  does 
locate  to  a  definite  historical  period  another  of  the  kings  of  Saba 
known  from  the  native  south  Arabian  inscriptions,  Karabail. 
Near  the  end  of  the  reign  a  promising  situation  developed 
among  the  northern  Arabs.  Power  was  equally  divided  be¬ 
tween  a  certain  Hazael  and  Telhunu,  who  was  both  queen 
and  priestess  of  Atar-samain.  The  angry  goddess  surrendered 
Hazael  to  the  Assyrians,  and  of  her  own  free  will  took  the  road 
to  their  country,  since  she  no  longer  wished  to  dwell  among 
the  Arabs.  Telhunu  abandoned  her  treasure  city,  Kapanu, 
in  fear  of  the  invader’s  power,  leaving  behind  her  gods  and  a 
thousand  camels;  she  fled  to  Admutu,  in  the  midst  of  the 
desert,  a  place  of  thirst,  in  whose  midst  is  no  provision  or 
drinking-place. 

Not  until  698  did  Sennacherib  devote  any  attention  to  the 
affairs  of  Asia  Minor  and  then  because  Kirua,  the  chief  of  II- 
lubru,  had  induced  a  revolt  of  the  Assyrian  troops  stationed  in 
Hilaku.  The  inhabitants  of  Ingira,  an  Ancyra  or  Angora  other¬ 
wise  unknown  to  fame,  unless  it  is  the  Greek  Anchiale,  and  of 
Tarzi  or  Tarsus,  supported  him,  seized  the  “Road  of  Que,” 
which  passed  through  the  Cilician  Gates,  and  closed  it  to 
traffic.  The  situation  was  too  serious  for  the  local  levies  to 
cope  with  and  the  royal  army  was  ordered  out. 

The  sculptures  depict  a  broad  river,  surrounded  by  moun¬ 
tains  and  forests.  Up  the  valley  and  frequently  recrossing  its 
windings  are  the  marching  Assyrians;  here  and  there  they 
must  dismount  and  drag  the  chariots  over  the  rocks.  Ingira 
and  Tarsus  were  pillaged  and  the  Assyrians  proceeded  to  shut 
up  Kirua  in  Illubru,  which  lay  on  both  sides  the  river  and  was 
guarded  by  long,  low  walls  with  equidistant  towers,  ornamented 
1  Keilschrifttexte  aus  .Assur,  II,  122.  2  Cf.  p.  211. 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM  311 


with  cornices  and  angular  battlements.  The  houses  were  large 
and  square,  and  the  windows  high  up  under  the  roof  were 
decorated  with  Ionic  pillars,  the  square  doors  were  surmounted 
by  a  plain  cornice.  Across  the  river  the  suburb  was  less 
crowded,  there  were  numerous  trees,  and  some  of  the  residences 
had  open  balustrades. 

Passing  over  vineyards  irrigated  by  the  smaller  streams,  the 
Assyrians  cut  down  the  trees  to  construct  the  “  great  flies  of 
the  wall”  which  were  to  force  the  capture  of  the  city.  It  was 
fired  and  the  long  line  of  warriors  carried  off  the  arms,  chairs, 
stools,  couches,  tables  with  heads  and  feet  of  animals,  beds 
with  curved  heads,  high-backed  chairs,  and  campstool-like 
tables.  In  artistic  contrast  to  these  scenes  of  terror,  the  sculp¬ 
tor  has  depicted  directly  under  the  walls  a  huge  tree  contain¬ 
ing  two  nests  and  their  bird  parents.  One  bird  mother  flies 
about  in  alarm,  fearing  that  the  Assyrians  will  next  hack  down 
her  own  tree;  the  other,  with  a  worm  in  her  mouth,  is  about 
to  present  it  to  the  hungry  young  in  the  nest. 

Kirua  was  carried  off  to  Nineveh,  there  to  be  flayed  alive; 
the  Cilicians  who  had  supported  him  were  deported,  and  their 
place  filled  with  captives.  The  weapons  of  Ashur  were  dedi¬ 
cated  in  Illubru,  and  before  his  image  was  set  up  a  memorial 
stele.  Three  years  later,  an  attempt  was  made  to  extend  the 
province  to  the  north  where  a  man  named  Hidi  had  united  into 
a  more  or  less  coherent  kingdom  the  region  known  as  Tabal, 
with  Til  Garimmu  as  its  capital.  This  attempt  at  unification 
was  naturally  taken  by  Assyria  as  a  casus  belli,  and  the  siege 
of  the  capital  and  the  carrying  off  of  its  inhabitants  as  nat¬ 
urally  followed.  Nothing  is  said  about  Hidi,  and  the  expedi¬ 
tion  had  no  further  consequences. 

Strangely  enough,  this  was  one  of  the  few  events  in  Assyrian 
history  not  in  the  Bible  which  was  transmitted  to  the  later 
world.  The  method  of  transmission  is  almost  without  par¬ 
allel.  To-day  we  must  consult  a  Latin  or  a  German  transla¬ 
tion  of  an  Armenian  translation  of  the  lost  Greek  of  the  Chron¬ 
icle  of  Eusebius,  who  has  given  two  parallel  accounts  without 
realising  their  identity,  one  from  Alexander  Polyhistor,  who 


312 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


borrowed  from  Berossus  direct,  the  other  from  Abydenus,  who 
borrowed  from  Juba,  who  borrowed  from  Polyhistor,  and  so 
from  Berossus,  who  borrowed  from  cuneiform  originals !  The 
account  transmitted  through  Polyhistor  is  not  inadequate. 
As  the  Ionian  Greeks  were  making  an  invasion  of  Cilicia,  Sen¬ 
nacherib  marched  against  them,  and  after  a  severe  hand-to- 
hand  struggle,  in  which  the  Assyrians  lost  heavily,  they  ulti¬ 
mately  secured  the  victory.  As  memorial,  Sennacherib  erected 
on  the  spot  his  figure,  and  in  Chaldsean  characters  engraved  an 
account  of  his  heroism.  Finally,  he  built  Tarsus  on  the  model 
of  Babylon.  This  is  a  good  paraphrase  of  the  inscription  just 
quoted;  turning  to  Abydenus,  we  are  scarcely  surprised  that 
Eusebius  took  them  as  separate  accounts,  for  the  battle  took 
place  on  the  Cilician  coast  and  the  Ionians  were  on  ships.  A 
battle  on  the  seacoast,  such  as  we  find  mentioned  in  Sargon’s 
annals,  has  been  transformed  in  the  Greek  mind  into  a  battle 
on  the  sea,  and  this  is  the  end  of  the  oft-quoted  seamanship  of 
Sennacherib. 

Haldia  had  been  taught  an  effective  lesson  by  Sargon  and 
the  Indo-European  invasion  had  necessitated  a  struggle  for 
very  existence.  In  the  Assyrian  sources  for  the  reign  Haldia 
is  never  mentioned,  for  peace  existed  with  Argishtish  II.  The 
buffer  states  between  the  two  greater  powers  unconsciously 
slipped  away  from  the  effective  control  of  either.  No  longer 
was  the  direct  road  between  the  two  capitals  safe  for  travellers, 
since  Assyrian  territory  ceased  before  one  had  gone  a  hundred 
miles  north  of  Nineveh.  The  facts  were  too  bitter  to  be  faced, 
and  the  writer  insists  that  the  tribes  in  the  vicinity  had  never 
known  a  strong  ruler  among  the  predecessors  of  Sennacherib. 
This  is  deliberate  falsehood,  intended  to  blot  from  the  mem¬ 
ories  of  his  readers  the  wonderful  swing  around  the  circle  which 
his  father  had  conducted  in  this  very  region,  only  to  discover 
before  his  death  that  the  cities  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
Urzana  of  Musasir. 

Not  content  with  virtual  independence,  the  mountaineers 
from  the  spring  and  the  River  Tigris  went  even  to  the  city  of 
Ashur,  deep  down  the  river,  since  the  gods  had  deserted  them 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


313 


and  made  their  paths  not  straight.  This  was  invasion,  so 
with  his  splendid  body-guard  and  his  men  of  battle  who  spare 
not.  Sennacherib  camped  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Xipur:  like  a 
mighty  wild  bull  he  took  the  road  before  them.  Gullies,  ra¬ 
vines,  mountain  slopes,  and  difficult  spurs  he  crossed  on  his 
throne;  places  which  were  too  steep  for  his  throne  he  climbed 
up  on  foot,  like  an  ibex  to  the  lofty  peaks  above.  Where  his 
knees  foimd  a  resting-place,  he  sat  down  on  a  rock  of  the  moun¬ 
tain  and  drank  cold  waters  from  a  skin  for  his  thirst.  Among 
the  rocks  of  the  wooded  mountains,  he  pursued  after  his  enemy 
and  defeated  them  there  among  the  stars. 

A  broad  river,  bordered  on  one  side  by  reversed  trees  and 
formed  by  the  union  of  a  whole  series  of  mountain  torrents,  is 
forded  by  the  Assyrians.  Although  the  countrv  is  rough,  there 
are  vinevards  and  orchards.  The  kins:  rides  in  the  midst  of 
his  forces;  before  him  are  spearmen  and  bowmen  in  their  re¬ 
spective  companies;  after  him  is  carried  his  second  chariot  on 
men’s  shoulders. 

For  these  cities,  which,  like  the  nest  of  the  eagle,  the  king 
of  birds,  lie  on  the  peak  of  the  difficult  mountains,  we  are  not 
confined  to  description  and  relief  ;  we  have  the  actual  remains. 
The  most  important  was  located  in  the  narrow  gorge  of  Ha- 
sanah,  now  filled  with  flowers,  as  it  was  then  with  fruit-trees 
and  vineyards.  Guarding  its  entrance  were  two  hills  with 
strong  forts.  Alammu  was  washed  bv  a  small  stream  at  whose 
level  stood  square  isolated  towers,  sometimes  with  two  stories. 
The  single  gate  to  the  city  was  half-way  up  the  hill,  which  was 
crowned  by  a  small  fort,  crammed  full  of  fighting  men.  while 
veritable  “crow's  nests"  rose  from  the  centre  and  afforded  the 
archers  a  clean  sweep.  Where  bows  were  not  available,  the 
defenders  relied  on  slings  or  hurled  down  stones  with  their 
bare  hands. 

Across  the  vallev  lav  another  village  with  a  suburb  on  the 
near  bank.  'Hie  cliff  rose  sheer  from  the  water’s  edge.  Ac¬ 
cess  to  the  fort  of  unsquared  stones  at  the  very  summit  could 
be  had  only  along  a  stoned  road  with  frequent  embankments. 
Our  surprise  at  finding  such  a  road  among  the  wild  Kurdish 


314 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


hills  of  to-day  is  increased  when  we  identify  it  with  the  con¬ 
spicuous  road  in  the  bas-reliefs  up  whose  steep  grade  Assyrian 
fighting  machines  were  being  forced.  A  portion  of  the  settle¬ 
ment  was  soon  taken,  but  the  remainder  resisted  strenuously. 
When  a  breach  was  made,  spearmen  hastened  into  the  opening, 
but  the  less-picked  soldiers  were  more  interested  in  carrying 
off  the  captives  and  their  gods.  At  the  foot  of  the  ascent 
Sennacherib  incised  one  of  his  stelae. 

If  we  may  judge  from  the  number  of  stelae  erected  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  modern  Shakh,  this  was  Tumurri,  the  chief 
town  in  the  region,  and  the  more  modern  walls,  doubtless  along 
earlier  lines,  point  in  the  same  direction.  A  high  rock  holds 
the  citadel,  the  walls  of  the  town  run  down  the  slopes,  the  two 
valleys  which  enter  the  mountain  are  likewise  walled  across. 
The  six  stelae  are  on  the  hillside  above  and  seem  deliberately 
hidden  to  avoid  mutilation  at  the  hands  of  enemies.1 

We  may  see  Tumurri  in  another  city  on  the  reliefs,  with  iso¬ 
lated  outworks,  roof  of  a  single  step,  and  oblong  doors.  Double 
walls,  with  unusually  low  gates  and  of  unusual  height,  were 
still  more  heightened  by  the  boards  which  formed  a  fighting 
parapet  above  the  towers.  The  defence  was  conducted  by  men 
armed  with  javelins  having  large  points,  and  their  most  char¬ 
acteristic  defensive  armour  was  the  oblong  shield  with  the  band 
across  either  end.  Tumurri  was  taken  by  escalade,  and  down 
the  slope  wound  the  long  procession  of  captives.  There  was 
much  variety  of  dress;  some  wore  robes  coming  down  to  their 
ankles  or  a  knee-length  tunic  with  sheepskin  slung  over  it  and 
with  leggings  laced  up  the  front;  others  had  a  plain  under¬ 
shirt,  an  upper  garment  coming  down  to  the  knee,  divided  in 
front  and  buttoned  at  the  neck;  the  tunics  of  some  had  a  diag¬ 
onal  or  even  a  sort  of  open-blouse  effect.  Their  wives  were 
clad  in  long  dresses  which  reached  to  the  feet,  and  over  this  a 
fringed  cloak  on  the  shoulders,  with  high  round  plaited  tur¬ 
bans  and  a  veil  covering  the  head  and  neck.  Richly  decorated 
horses  made  up  a  large  share  of  the  spoil.  Sennacherib  then 
turned  the  direction  of  his  weapons  against  Manias  king  of 
1  Bell,  Amurath,  290  ff.;  King,  PSBA XXXV,  66  ff. 


ISAIAH  AND  THE  SIEGE  OF  JERUSALEM 


315 


the  city  of  Ukku  in  the  land  of  Daie.  The  land  has  already 
attracted  our  attention  since  the  period  of  the  first  Tiglath 
Pileser,  while  the  Ukkai  often  appear  during  the  Armenian 
wars  at  the  close  of  Sargon’s  reign.  By  paths  which  were  not 
open  and  by  difficult  trails  opposite  difficult  mountains  along 
which  none  of  the  earlier  kings  had  gone,  he  made  his  camp  at 
the  foot  of  mighty  mountains.  On  his  throne  of  state,  with 
much  labour  he  penetrated  into  their  strait  passes,  and  in 
trouble  he  scaled  the  peaks  of  the  steep  mountains.  Maniae 
saw  the  dust-clouds  from  the  feet  of  his  approaching  soldiers, 
abandoned  Ukku,  and  fled  afar  off. 

The  faithful  reliefs  again  picture  the  sack  of  the  mountain 
city  and  the  defeat  of  the  defenders  with  their  high  crested 
helmets,  small  round  shields,  and  long  spears.  The  Haldian 
trinity  of  gods  had  been  adopted  and  the  sculptor  has  cele¬ 
brated  this  most  unique  of  conquests,  one  a  human  figure  with 
outstretched  arms,  the  second  a  lion-headed  being  with  long 
staff  in  hand,  the  third  an  image  in  a  small  frame. 

Minor  as  these  operations  were,  their  chief  interest  is  not 
in  their  picturesque  details.  They  tell  a  story  whose  meaning 
is  clear.  The  frontier  is  falling  back  and  there  is  definite 
threat  for  the  future. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 

If  there  has  never  been  presented  a  picture  of  the  culture  of 
Sennacherib’s  reign,  this  is  in  part  due  to  his  unfortunate 
reputation,  in  part  to  the  position  of  that  reign,  between 
those  of  his  father  and  of  his  grandson,  with  their  still  greater 
amount  of  cultural  material.  The  perusal  of  the  pages  pre¬ 
ceding  should  already  have  indicated  that  the  period  is  im¬ 
portant  in  the  development  of  civilisation. 

Nearly  every  corner  of  Ashur  showed  traces  of  his  building 
activities.  In  the  centre  of  the  east  front  was  a  palace  for  his 
son,  Ashur-ilu-mubalitsu.  In  the  angle  between  the  Ashur 
temple  and  the  Tigris  was  an  East  House  cutting  into  the  city 
walls.  The  triangular  court  thus  formed  was  named  the 
“ Parade  Ground  of  the  Heavenly  Hosts,”  and  various  gates 
bore  the  picturesque  titles  of  “  Vari-coloured  Gate,”  “ Entrance 
for  the  Heavenly  Host,”  “Gate  of  the  Heavenly  Wain,”  “Gate 
of  the  Fateful  Chamber.”  The  “Gate  of  the  Heavenly  Road 
of  Enlil”  led  to  the  structure  decorated  with  fishmen  and 
scorpion  men,  while  Ashur  himself  was  presented  with  the  new 
“King’s  Gate.” 

For  the  kiretu  feast  of  the  god  Ashur,  the  invited  dinner, 
when  he  collects  the  other  gods  to  celebrate  his  conquest  of 
the  chaos  monster  Tiamat,  Sennacherib  constructed  a  “New 
Year’s  House”  northwest  of  the  city  walls,  but  within  the  legal 
limits  of  the  city.  The  approach  was  through  a  garden  with 
trees  planted  in  rows  dug  five  feet  deep  in  rock  and  watered 
from  reservoirs  by  small  connecting  canals.  A  vestibule  led 
through  a  court,  likewise  filled  with  trees  and  surrounded  by 
pillars,  into  the  cella.  At  the  gate  was  a  copper  relief  with  a 
scene  showing  the  gods.1 

Sargon’s  palace  at  Dur  Sharrukin  was  in  considerable  part 

1  MDOG.,  33,  24  ff.;  47,  39  f. 

316 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


317 


unfinished,  but  Sennacherib  had  no  intention  of  living  under 
the  shadow  of  another’s  fame.  Not  many  miles  south,  on  a 
spur  of  a  near-by  mountain,  lay  a  little  town  named  Nineveh, 
with  an  exceedingly  ancient  sanctuary,  Emashmash,  belonging 


5 

mm 

Wm 

Wm 

\ 

I 

§  n  ® 

i  i  b  §g 

§  M  k&QQ  o  El 

i  ^##0  1 

l_ 


0000 

0 


0 

0 


GARDEN 


<&&&£>>■<$> 


<&£><&  4p 


GARDEN 

4$  0,^0 

&&&&&#&&& 

FESTIVAL  HO  USE  ##?#,£?  /&&&&&& 

or 

SENNACHERIB 

SCALE  &£&&&&&&$> 

$>  io  ?o  30  -40  so  feet  <S  ®  ® 

*&4S|4S><J><0  <$<©#«>  1 — 1 — 1 — 1 — 1 — 1  ®  &£>  & 


Map  6.  FESTIVAL  HOUSE  OF  SENNACHERIB  AT  ASHUR. 


to  the  most  famous  of  Assyrian  goddesses,  Ishtar,  who  in  one 
of  her  manifestations  owed  her  title  to  the  city.  The  Shu- 
merian  name  of  the  shrine  and  the  identity  of  that  of  the  city 
with  an  older  Nina  of  south  Babylonia  was  sufficient  proof  of 
antiquity,  and  many  kings,  from  Dungi  and  Hammurabi  down¬ 
wards,  had  honoured  her  temple. 

But  though  these  and  many  another  had  made  dedications 
in  Ishtar’s  fane,  or  had  even  rested  under  its  shadow  for  the 


318 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


moment,  last  of  all  his  own  father,  Sargon,  there  was  no  city 
of  its  size  or  sanctity  in  all  Assyria  which  was  so  little  asso¬ 
ciated  with  the  fame  of  any  previous  monarch.  In  situation 
it  was  certainly  superior  to  Dur  Sharrukin;  it  shared  with 
Kalhu  and  Ashur  a  location  on  the  Tigris,  with  Arbela  a  posi¬ 
tion  on  the  direct  road  from  southeast  to  northwest  and  the 
prestige  which  went  with  a  shrine  of  Ishtar.  The  best  evi¬ 
dence  for  the  wisdom  of  its  choice  is  its  survival.  Ashur  is  a 
waste,  Kalhu  and  Dur  Sharrukin  claim  the  tiniest  of  near-by 
villages,  Arbela  is  a  city  of  the  second  class,  but  Mosul,  which 
has  simply  changed  to  the  opposite  shore,  is  far  and  beyond 
the  largest  and  most  important  city  in  the  ancient  Assyrian 
territory. 

Nineveh  owes  to  Sennacherib  its  position  as  the  capital  par 
excellence  of  the  Assyrian  empire.  The  exalted  city,  beloved 
of  Ishtar,  wherein  are  all  the  shrines  of  gods  and  goddesses,  the 
everlasting  structure,  whose  design  from  of  old  with  the  writ¬ 
ing  of  the  heavens  had  been  fashioned  and  whose  structure 
shone  brightly,  the  beautiful  place,  the  abode  of  the  oracle, 
where  all  manner  of  works  of  art,  all  shrines  and  treasures  had 
been  brought,  the  place  where  former  kings  had  received  the 
tribute  of  princes  of  the  four  world  regions,  thus  Sennacherib 
sings  the  praise  of  the  city  he  had  chosen  for  his  capital.  Yet, 
with  all  these  advantages,  no  one  had  realised  the  narrowness 
of  its  site  or  had  pondered  in  his  heart  its  enlarging  or  the 
making  straight  of  its  streets  or  the  planting  of  its  gardens. 

Sennacherib  it  was  who  turned  his  ears  and  directed  his 
liver  to  the  command  of  the  gods  and  set  to  forced  labour  and 
the  making  of  bricks  the  population  he  had  carried  off.  Reeds 
and  rushes,  the  best  of  their  kind,  he  brought  from  the  Chal- 
daean  land.  The  Tebiltu  was  a  violent  stream,  which  in  its 
course  had  destroyed  the  ground  within  the  city,  and  the 
cemeteries  were  burned  and  scorched  in  the  sun.  Since  dis¬ 
tant  days  it  had  come  up  to  the  very  walls  of  the  palace,  so 
that  in  its  mighty  flood  the  foundations  were  destroyed  and 
the  substructure  was  weakened. 

The  former  small  palace  was  completely  razed,  the  course 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


ol  ■ 


of  the  Tebiltu  was  changed,  and  its  outlet  was  given  direc¬ 
tion.  ithin  the  enclo.sure  of  its  walls,  under  which  were 
reeds  and  above  mighty  stones  of  the  mountains,  bitumen  was 
spread,  and  ground  from  the  river  was  raised  to  be  like  a  hill. 
In  the  sculptures  we  see  the  king  in  his  chariot,  watching  the 
building  of  the  two  mounds.  Between  the  two  is  the  clay  pit 
and  around  crouch  or  kneel  the  men  who  make  the  bricks. 
The  captives  wear  short  tunics  and  liberty-caps.  They  are 
shackled  at  the  ankles  or  with  heather  bonds  on  the  legs,  with 
a  bar  at  the  waist  or  with  long  rods  attached  to  their  girdle 
rings.  Thus  encumbered,  they  lift  to  the  top  of  the  mound 
huge  stones,  or  have  baskets  filled  with  bricks  or  simple  earth 
roped  to  their  backs.  The  new  mound  was  to  measure  over  a 
thousand  feet  in  length,  while  the  breadth  varied  from  about 
two  hundred  and  fiftv  feet  at  the  south  to  almost  six  hundred 
at  the  north.  Its  area  actually  comprises  some  hundred  acres 
and  it  has  been  estimated  that  the  sendees  of  ten  thousand 
men  for  twelve  years  were  required  to  raise  the  fifteen  million 
tons  of  the  platform. 

So  that  the  foundations  might  not  be  weakened  by  lapse  of 
time  or  by  the  swelling  flood,  its  earthwork  was  strengthened 
with  huge  blocks  of  limestone.  Written  records  were  inserted 
a  hundred  and  sixtv  courses  within  the  mound,  a  testimony 
to  later  times.  Afterwards  Sennacherib  determined  to  raise 
the  mound  and  added  twenty  more  courses  to  the  former 
height. 

In  October,  702,  Sennacherib  could  speak  only  in  general 
terms  of  palaces  of  gold,  silver,  and  bronze,  of  malachite  and 
breccia,  of  cypress,  pistachio,  and  pine,  which  for  the  abode 
of  his  kingship  he  had  made  in  the  midst.  Little  progress  is 
reported  for  the  next  six  years,  though  by  November  of  090 
the  mound  had  been  carried  yet  ten  courses  higher.  Outside 
the  main  entrance,  on  the  very  edge  of  the  mound,  was  placed 
a  gate-house  after  the  model  of  a  Hittite  palace.  On  round 
pedestals  rested  the  columns  which  made  the  colonnaded  hall 
so  pleasant  an  open  structure  in  which  to  enjoy  the  mountain 
breezes  from  the  northeast. 


320 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


The  roofing  of  the  palace  was  of  beams  of  cedar  and  cypress, 
whose  scent  is  good,  the  product  of  the  Amanus  and  Sirara, 
snow-shining  mountains.  Doors  of  cedar,  cypress,  pine,  and 
pistachio,  with  a  plating  of  silver  and  copper  he  bound,  and 
in  the  space  within  the  building  he  opened  light  holes,  so 
that  the  darkness  from  the  roofing  within  the  chambers  he 
lightened,  like  the  day  he  made  them  to  shine.  Thus  is 
marked  the  introduction  of  the  clear-story,  which  for  so  many 
centuries  had  beautified  Egyptian  temples;  it  is  much  to  be 
regretted  that  the  upper  portion  of  the  palace  has  not  been 
preserved  to  show  how  the  new  idea  was  treated  by  the  As¬ 
syrian  architect.  With  clasps  of  silver  and  copper,  their  in¬ 
terior  was  enclosed,  and  the  ramparts,  cornices,  and  copings 
were  decorated  with  brickwork,  mouth  stone,  and  lapis  lazuli. 

Because  Ashur  and  Ishtar  loved  his  priesthood  and  had  pro¬ 
nounced  his  name,  they  disclosed  the  position  of  the  great 
trees  of  cedar  which  had  been  growing  since  distant  days  and 
had  become  exceedingly  great  in  the  midst  of  Mount  Sirara 
in  which  they  stood  concealed.  As  for  alabaster,  which  in  the 
days  of  his  fathers  had  been  considered  so  precious  that  it  was 
used  to  decorate  the  handle  of  a  sword,  now  they  opened  a 
store  of  marble  in  the  depths  of  the  Amanus,  and  breccia,  for 
great  stone  vessels,  which  had  never  before  been  found,  now 
revealed  itself.  When  from  of  old  the  kings  his  fathers  would 
set  up  an  image  of  bronze  in  the  palace,  all  the  workmen 
groaned,  through  want  of  understanding  and  lack  of  knowledge 
for  the  work  of  their  desire.  Oil  they  poured  out  in  divina¬ 
tion,  the  fleece  of  sheep  they  sheared  in  their  lands. 

Sennacherib  modestly  admits  that  he  was  their  superior  in 
that  he  knew  craftsmanship.  Through  the  clever  understand¬ 
ing  with  which  the  mighty  Nin-igi-azag,  that  is,  Ea,  had  en¬ 
dowed  him,  he  took  careful  counsel  with  himself,  and  by  the 
decision  of  his  will  and  the  prompting  of  his  liver  he  made 
great  lions  of  bronze,  open  at  the  knees,  which  none  of  his 
predecessors  had  fashioned.  Castings  of  bronze  he  made  and 
cunningly  executed.  With  great  beams  and  framework  of 
meshre  wood  he  constructed  twelve  shining  lions,  with  twelve 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


321 


colossi,  exalted,  complete  in  form,  and  twenty-two  female 
colossi,  who  were  clothed  in  exuberant  strength  and  abounded 
in  life  and  vigour.  According  to  the  command  of  the  god.  he 
fashioned  moulds  of  clay  and  poured  the  bronze  as  if  he  were 
easting  half-shekel  pieces.  Here  we  have  a  direct  reference  to 
coined  money,  and  we  may  compare  the  "Ishtar  heads  "  of  the 
Assyrian  business  documents  which  are  the  direct  ancestors, 
in  name  as  in  fact,  of  the  Greek  coins  called  staters.  Two 
colossi  were  gilded,  female  colossi  were  constructed  of  gtianna 
metal,  colonnades  were  formed  with  pillars  of  box.  cypress, 
cedar,  pine,  pistachio,  and  were  coated  with  pasahi  metal  and 
silver. 


As  support  for  the  doors,  bull  colossi  of  white  marble  were 
quarried  in  Tastiate  on  the  far  bank  of  the  Tigris.  First,  great 
trees  were  cut  down  to  make  rafts  in  the  midst  of  the  waters. 
In  May,  when  the  spring  floods  reach  their  height,  they  brought 
them  across  with  difficult v  to  the  other  side  on  enormous  rafts. 
In  the  crossing  of  the  quay  wall  the  great  rafts  sank  deep,  their 
crews  groaned  and  were  distressed  in  spirit,  by  main  force  and 
with  tribulation  thev  brought  them.  Following  the  command 
of  the  god,  white  limestone  was  discovered  in  abundance  in 
the  district  of  Balata.  on  the  high  hills  back  of  the  Assvrian 
Triangle,  where  to-day  a  half-dozen  Kurdish  huts  force  to  the 
floor  in  vain  escape  from  the  smoke  the  traveller  who  seeks  a 
refuge  from  the  blizzard.  Colossi  and  images  were  sculptured 
from  alabaster  and  were  constructed  of  one  stone,  of  mighty 
proportions,  standing  high  on  their  own  bases,  and  female 
colossi  whose  appearance  was  glorious.  Like  the  bright  day 
their  bodies  shone,  mighty  slabs  of  breccia,  cut  free  from  their 
mountain  on  both  sides,  and  for  the  construction  of  the  palace 
thev  were  dragged  into  Nineveh. 

Vivid  as  is  this  description,  we  do  still  better  when  we  turn 
to  the  sculptured  slabs  which  encased  the  walls  of  the  palace 
itself.  We  are  in  the  mountains,  with  tall  trees,  vines,  and 
the  beehive  huts  constructed  to-day  only  in  north  Syria.  We 
tirst  see  the  bull  in  the  rough,  a  shapeless  mass  of  stone  ex¬ 
tending  over  the  low  tlat-bottomed  scow  on  which  it  is  being 


322 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


floated  down  the  river.  Upright  beams  wedged  with  wood 
hold  the  mass,  and  through  two  holes  in  the  stone  and  a  third 
knotted  and  fastened  to  a  plug  in  the  raft’s  fore,  extend  three 
cables.  A  hundred  men  to  each,  they  drag  the  craft  by  means 
of  smaller  ropes  fastened  to  their  shoulders.  By  their  dress 
they  can  be  identified  with  the  various  captive  nations — Chal- 
dseans,  Aramaeans,  Mannai,  men  of  Que  and  Hilaku,  Tyrians 
and  Philistines.  Some  are  stark  naked,  others  have  short 
checked  tunics  with  girdle  fringe,  others  again  gather  their 
hair  in  an  embroidered  turban  and  drape  a  fringed  shawl  so 
that  their  curls  reach  to  the  shoulder.  A  part  work  on  the 
shore,  a  part  in  the  water,  a  part  push  the  boat.  On  the  bull 
itself  stands  the  master  workman,  who  gives  the  signals  with 
outstretched  hands,  while  guards  armed  with  sticks  and  swords 
drive  on  the  hapless  captives. 

The  bull,  already  carved,  appears  in  process  of  removal  to 
its  permanent  home.  It  now  rests  on  a  sledge  with  a  rounded 
front.  The  motive  power  is  again  human,  but  the  labour  of 
the  men  is  facilitated  by  the  use  of  rollers  and  by  the  levers 
which  give  it  the  first  start,  though  sometimes  it  takes  the 
weight  of  men  seated  upon  them  or  hanging  from  long  ropes  to 
move  the  enormous  mass.  On  the  front  of  the  bull  is  a  kneel¬ 
ing  man,  who  beats  time  with  his  hands  in  that  clapping  ca¬ 
dence  which  rings  so  often  in  the  ears  of  the  Eastern  traveller, 
that  the  men  may  work  in  unison.  A  second  foreman  gives  or¬ 
ders  with  a  trumpet  and  a  third  with  a  mace  signals  to  those 
who  use  the  levers.  They  are  accompanied  by  men  carrying 
ropes  or  saws,  hatchets,  pickaxes,  or  shovels,  or  dragging  ropes 
and  beams  on  carts  with  centred  axles.  Cork-like  boats  of  reed 
or  skin,  rowed  by  wedge-shaped  oars,  follow  along  the  bank, 
bringing  down  the  huge  stone  door-sills.  The  inevitable  genre 
is  not  forgotten,  fishermen  astride  skins  filled  with  air,  pa¬ 
tiently  waiting  a  bite  to  hook  and  line.  In  studied  contrast 
stands  the  king  in  his  eunuch-drawn  chariot,  and  holding  in 
his  hand  a  flower  as  he  inspects  the  work.  Again  the  contrast 
is  presented,  the  wretched  captives  painfully  dragging  the 
sheer  dead  weight  of  the  forty  or  fifty  ton  bulls  up  the  steep 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


323 


slope  of  the  newly  built  mound.  Finally  the  bull  Ls  placed 
upright  in  a  wooden  framework,  and  Ls  kept  in  place  by  guy- 
ropes  and  by  forked  poles.  The  whole  process  was  almost 
exactly  repeated  when  the  bulls  were  once  more  removed  by 
the  nineteenth-centurv  excavator. 

“Palace  that  hath  no  rival''  the  completed  structure  was 
called,  and  for  Assyria  at  least  the  name  was  true.  The  actual 
remains  add  little  to  the  description  and  pictures  already  pre- 


Fig.  129.  TRAXSPOKTATION  OF  THE  HITMAN-HEADED  BULL. 

sented.  Since  the  corners  faced  the  cardinal  points,  the  vis¬ 
itor  must  approach  it  from  the  grand  entrance  at  the  north¬ 
east,  beyond  the  Hittite  colonnade.  Across  the  front  stood 
five  pairs  of  bull  colossi,  twenty  feet  long  and  as  many  high, 
which  formed  the  jambs.  Unlike  the  bulls  from  the  earlier 
periods,  but  four  feet  are  shown.  The  beard,  the  body  hair, 
the  plaited  tail,  and  the  triple  wings  are  made  with  the 
utmost  attention  to  detail.  Above  the  triple  horns  is  a  cap 
with  rosettes  and  palm-leaves.  Winged  sphinxes  with  similar 
crowns  formed  the  bases  of  the  columns.  The  winged  genius 
with  spathe  and  basket  appeared  as  in  the  earlier  palaces. 
Along  the  whole  front  were  lines  of  slabs  depicting  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  campaigns. 


324 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Passing  inside,  we  find  the  usual  three  divisions,  devoted 
respectively  to  the  officials,  the  servants,  and  the  women,  but 
each  was  considerably  larger  in  size  than  those  at  Dur  Shar- 
rukin,  since  the  architects  had  grown  more  daring  in  their 
attempts  to  roof  over  larger  rooms.  The  two  great  halls  of 
audience,  adorned  with  the  reliefs  which  told  the  story  of 
Merodach  Baladan,  were  forty  feet  wide  and  no  less  than  a 
hundred  and  fifty  and  a  hundred  and  eight  feet  long  respec¬ 
tively.  Of  lesser  rooms  there  were  more  than  seventy. 

After  the  work  on  the  palace  had  been  brought  to  an  end, 
all  the  Assyrian  gods  were  assembled  and  great  gifts  and  sac¬ 
rifices  were  presented  to  them.  At  the  dedication  of  the  pal¬ 
ace  the  heads  of  the  Assyrian  citizens  were  saturated  with  oil, 
their  hearts  were  drenched  with  wine  and  mead.  Led  by 
mace-bearers,  the  servants  appear  carrying  food  for  the  ban¬ 
quet.  In  the  place  of  honour  is  borne  a  pineapple,  strange  as 
it  may  appear  to  find  it  at  this  time  and  place.  Ripe  dates 
clinging  to  their  branches  and  flat  wicker  baskets  with  pome¬ 
granates,  apples,  and  dates  come  next.  Assyria  was  no  less 
blessed  with  flies  in  the  days  of  Sennacherib  than  at  present, 
the  bearers  must  keep  one  hand  free  for  the  improvised  fly- 
flapper  of  branches  to  drive  them  away.  Hares  and  partridges 
contribute  the  meat,  unless  we  are  to  include  here  the  dried 
locusts  strung  on  sticks,  always  a  standard  article  of  diet  in 
the  East,  both  before  and  since  the  days  of  John  the  Baptist. 
Dessert  is  marked  by  other  strings  of  pomegranates,  and  the 
low  tables,  each  carried  by  two  men,  on  their  shoulders,  with 
heaps  of  dates,  figs,  and  grapes,  and  baskets  of  sweetmeats. 
That  the  term  “drenched”  is  no  misnomer  is  proved  by  the 
fifteen  jars,  their  mouths  filled  with  flowers,  which  bend  the 
shoulders  of  the  bearers. 

We  turn  to  the  official  “Book  of  Ceremonies”  for  the  ban¬ 
quet  itself.  On  the  appointed  day  of  the  festival  the  king 
enters  first  and  a  couch  is  placed  opposite  the  main  entrance. 
When  the  king  has  taken  his  seat,  the  official  who  is  over  the 
land,  the  master  of  ceremonies,  comes  in,  kisses  the  earth 
before  the  king,  makes  his  report,  then  brings  in  the  ner  of 


' 


326 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  hands,  raises  it  on  high,  pours  out  the  water  and  rinses 
the  hands.  The  cereal  foods  and  the  meat  are  carried  in,  the 
commander-in-chief  and  the  chief  baker  assume  their  posi¬ 
tion.  Tables  are  brought  in  and  on  them  they  place  all  that 
is  carried  in  and  set  them  opposite  the  king. 

Torches  are  lighted  before  the  great  Shamash  and  carried 
into  the  palace.  The  second  palace  official  is  by  this  time  on 
guard;  when  they  are  prepared  he  has  them  lighted  and  brings 
them  in.  When  the  meal  is  entirely  ended,  they  burn  much 
incense  between  the  king’s  sons  and  the  nobles.  Great  drink¬ 
ing-vessels  appear,  the  chief  master  of  ceremonies  takes  his 
position,  he  recites  the  work  of  the  musician.  The  deputy 
palace  official  places  staffs  in  their  hands  and  with  another 
stands  on  guard.  The  chief  baker  declares  “The  feast  is 
ended.”  The  crown  prince  goes  out,  the  nobles  group  them¬ 
selves  together  in  pairs,  and  rise.  The  dishes  are  removed, 
first  those  of  the  nobles,  then  those  of  the  crown  prince,  finally 
those  of  the  king  himself,  and  the  feast  is  ended.1 

Thanks  again  to  the  care  of  Sennacherib  for  the  future  his¬ 
torian,  we  know  the  topography  of  the  city  proper  to  an  un¬ 
usual  degree.  The  previous  area  of  Nineveh  had  been  but 
nine  thousand  and  three  hundred  cubits;  now  twelve  thousand 
five  hundred  and  fifteen  were  added,  so  that  the  total  was 
almost  twenty-two  hundred.  This  was  no  small  city,  fully 
two-thirds  of  Rome  within  the  Aurelian  wall,  but  as  it  was 
somewhat  less  closely  settled,  we  may  follow  the  analogy  of 
modern  oriental  cities  and  estimate  the  total  population  at 
something  like  three  hundred  thousand.  The  inner  wall  was 
given  a  high-sounding  Shumerian  name  meaning  “The  wall 
whose  splendour  overthrows  the  enemy.”  Its  structure  was 
limestone,  laid  up  in  courses  and  dug  from  the  moat  in  front; 
its  width  was  forty  courses,  its  height  a  hundred  and  eighty, 
of  which  some  seventy  feet  of  height  can  still  be  observed. 
The  whole  face,  up  to  the  triply  stepped  battlements,  was  con¬ 
structed  of  hewn  stone. 

Fourteen  gates,  changed  the  next  year  to  fifteen,  gave  en- 

1  Klauber,  Beamtentum ,  16  ff. 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


327 


trance  to  the  city.  Their  names  have  interest  for  other  than 
topographical  reasons.  Beginning  at  the  southwest  corner, 


Map  8.  NINEVEH  AS  RESTORED  BY  SENNACHERIB. 


they  run  as  follows:  The  Handuri  Gate,  “Sharur  who  over¬ 
comes  the  king’s  foes”;  the  Gate  of  the  god  Ashur  of  the  city 
of  Ashur,  “May  the  vicegerent  of  Ashur  be  strong,”  which 


328 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


shows  that  the  usual  road  to  the  older  capital  was  down  the 
east  and  not  the  west  bank,  and  which  also  shows  how  sedu¬ 
lously  Kalhu  is  ignored;  the  Gate  of  Sennacherib  of  the  land 
of  Halzi,  “That  overwhelms  all  foes,”  the  direct  route  to 
Zaban;  the  Gate  of  Shamash  of  the  land  of  Galgal,  “Enlil  who 
establishes  my  rule,”  covered  by  a  huge  tower  to  the  north 
and  fittingly  dedicated  to  the  sun-god,  since  it  faced  the  sun¬ 
rise;  the  Gate  of  Ninlil  of  the  city  of  Kar  Ninlil,  an  archaic 
name  for  the  mother  goddess  and  her  city  Arbela,  earlier  called 
“Ishtar,  patroness  of  his  land,”  later  changed  to  “Of  Sen¬ 
nacherib,  establish  his  rule”;  the  Covered  Gate,  “That  causes 
the  flesh  of  the  leprosy  demon  to  go  forth,”  that  Leper’s  Gate 
which  marred  so  many  oriental  cities;  the  Gate  of  the  city  of 
Shibaniba,  “The  choicest  of  grains  and  stores  are  in  it  ever,” 
for  the  province  of  that  name  was  noted  for  its  fruitful  soil; 
the  Gate  of  the  city  of  Hatamti,  “That  brings  the  product  of 
the  highlands,”  the  mountains  directly  north,  and  though  the 
direct  road  to  Dur  Sharrukin,  this  too  was  ignored;  the  Gate 
of  the  Adad  of  fertility,  “Adad  who  bestows  abundance  on  the 
land,”  the  northeast  corner  where  the  ground  was  highest;  the 
Gate  of  Nergal  of  the  city  of  Tarbisu,  “Urra  who  destroys  my 
enemies,”  the  road  to  the  suburb  so  loved  by  Sennacherib;  the 
Gate  of  the  Gardens,  “Igisigsig  who  has  made  orchards  luxuri¬ 
ant,”  for  the  famous  gardens  were  just  north  of  the  city  in  the 
angle  made  by  the  Tigris  and  the  northwest  line  of  the  wall; 
later  Igisigsig  fell  into  disfavour  and  the  gate  was  assigned  to 
Sin  and  was  named  “Nannar  who  guards  my  lofty  diadem.” 

The  northwest  corner  of  the  walls  touched  the  river,  and 
just  below,  where  the  water  was  still  comparatively  free  of  pol¬ 
lution,  the  carriers  came  to  the  gate  with  the  very  appropriate 
name.  Gate  of  the  Watering  Places,  “Ea  who  directs  my 
springs.”  When  the  great  canal  from  the  Gomel  River  was 
completed,  an  extension  was  conducted  thither.  Opposite  the 
modern  Mosul  and  not  far  from  the  bridge  of  boats  and  the 
eternal  clatter  of  women  pounding  their  clothes  in  the  vain 
hope  of  making  them  clean,  was  the  Gate  of  the  Quay,  where 
the  Husur  then  flowed  directly  under  the  palace  walls.  “That 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


329 


brings  the  tribute  of  the  nations”  was  its  significant  title,  for 
the  states  which  could  be  most  easily  plundered  and  with  the 
best  results  lay  to  the  west.  The  Gate  of  the  Desert,  “The 
gifts  of  the  Sumuan  and  Teme  peoples  enter  it,”  was  not  in 
existence  in  696;  the  next  year  Sennacherib  must  have  enjoyed 
some  success  over  the  Arabs.  The  last  was  the  Gate  of  the 
Armoury,  with  the  appropriate  title,  “That  provides  for  all.” 

Six  years  later  the  armoury  was  complete.  When  Sennach¬ 
erib  began  its  construction,  in  close  connection  with  the  build¬ 
ing  of  the  inner  wall,  there  was  no  foundation,  the  ground  plan 
was  too  small,  its  form  was  not  artistic.  Its  platform  was 
weakened,  its  foundation  had  collapsed,  its  superstructure  was 
in  ruins.  The  palace  was  completely  wrecked,  a  considerable 
portion  of  ground  from  the  midst  of  the  swamp  and  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood  of  the  city  was  added.  The  site  of  the  former  palace 
was  abandoned,  and  on  the  swamp  ground  recovered  from  the 
bed  of  the  river  which  flowed  under  the  walls  a  terrace  of  two 
hundred  courses  enclosed  some  forty  acres.  In  a  favourable 
month,  on  an  auspicious  day,  Sennacherib  in  the  wisdom  of 
his  heart  and  by  the  co-operation  of  his  clever  architects, 
erected  a  palace  of  white  limestone  and  cedar  in  the  style  of 
the  Hittite  land  and  a  splendid  palace  in  the  Assyrian,  which 
was  greatly  superior  to  the  former  in  size  and  artistic  effect. 
Great  beams  of  cedar,  the  product  of  Mount  Amanus,  were 
used  for  the  roofs,  cedar  doors  were  bound  with  strips  of  bright 
copper,  and  colossi  from  Balata  were  placed  to  right  and  left 
of  them.  In  this  were  stored  camp  equipage,  horses,  mules, 
calves,  asses,  chariots,  baggage-wagons,  quivers,  bows  and 
arrows,  weapons  of  war,  harness  for  horses  and  mules  whose 
strength  is  great  when  subjugated  to  the  yoke,  all  that  was 
needed  for  the  rule  of  the  black-headed  folk. 

The  circuit  of  the  inner  walls  was  aoout  eight  miles,  and  the 
area  within  no  less  than  eighteen  hundred  acres.  Next  this 
inner  wall  were  the  water  defences.  On  the  west  the  Tigris 
came  close  under  the  long,  straight  line  of  wall,  the  south  side 
was  very  short  and  protected  by  a  deep  ravine.  On  the  north 
and  east  and  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  from  the  line  of  the  wall 


330 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


was  a  moat  of  the  same  width  and  fifteen  feet  deep,  cut  from 
the  living  rock.  Lest  these  be  filled  too  full  with  the  backwash 
of  the  Tigris,  massive  dams  at  the  northwest  and  southwest 
corners  restrained  the  high  waters.  Three  successive  dams 
likewise  prevented  the  flooding  of  the  city  from  the  Husur. 
South  of  that  stream  a  moon-shaped  double  line  of  walls  pro¬ 
jected  forth,  the  central  moat  filled  from  a  spring  of  living 
water,  and  beyond  that  was  the  double  outer  wall,  “Wall  that 
terrifies  the  enemy,  ”  also  with  a  moat  between.  The  outer 
stone  facing  of  mighty  stones  from  the  mountain  has  been 
carried  away  to  build  Nineveh’s  successor  across  the  river, 
but  the  inner  casing  of  burnt  bricks  and  the  core  of  mingled 
earth  and  stone  still  exemplify  its  huge  bulk. 

Sargon’s  visit  to  Haldia  had  familiarised  the  Assyrians  with 
the  splendid  hydraulic  works  of  the  early  Armenians;  his  son 
applied  the  knowledge  to  the  watering  of  the  Assyrian  Tri¬ 
angle.  To  increase  the  amount  of  land  under  cultivation,  he 
dug  a  canal  with  axes  over  mountain  and  vale,  from  Kisiri  to 
Nineveh.  One  and  a  half  double  hours  from  the  midst  of  the 
Husur,  its  ancient  bed  he  lowered,  and  led  the  water  by  irri¬ 
gation  canals  through  the  orchards.  High  gardens,  like  Mount 
Amanus,  of  all  choice  and  select  trees,  the  glory  of  the  moun¬ 
tains  and  of  the  Chaldsean  land,  within  its  grounds  in  rows  he 
planted.  For  the  setting  out  of  these  trees,  he  divided  plots 
in  the  neighbourhood  above  the  city  of  Shapitan,  and  gave  it 
to  the  sons  of  Nineveh  and  made  them  land  dependents. 

Waters  were  conducted  from  the  foot  of  Mount  Musri  and 
were  brought  to  rest  in  a  swamp  and  a  reed  plantation  specially 
made  for  the  purpose.  The  reed  plantation  was  most  success¬ 
ful.  The  birds  of  the  heavens,  the  igiru  birds,  whose  home  is 
far  distant,  built  their  nests,  and  the  wild  swine  of  the  reeds 
and  the  deer  of  the  forest  brought  forth  their  young  in  abun¬ 
dance.  The  faithful  reliefs  picture  the  reeds  far  above  the 
height  of  a  man,  and  in  their  recesses  a  stag  and  two  hinds, 
also  a  wild  sow  with  her  baby  pigs.  Nothing  in  Assyrian  art 
excels  the  latter  for  natural  effect.  According  to  the  com¬ 
mand  of  the  god,  the  king  placed  within  the  gardens  all  fruits, 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


331 


vines,  sirdu-trees,  cypresses,  miskanu,  herbs,  which  all  put 
forth  plentiful  shoots  and  were  more  luxuriant  than  in  their 
native  habitat.  Miskanu  and  cypress,  the  product  of  the 
gardens  and  the  reed  beds,  were  cut  down  in  the  swamps  and 
used  for  the  building  of  the  palace.  In  the  hot  weather,  all 
the  orchards  were  irrigated;  in  the  cold  a  thousand  imers  of 
grain  land  above  and  below  the  city  were  watered  every  year. 

With  a  true  sense  of  dramatic  fitness,  Sennacherib  has  re- 


Fig.  130.  WILD  SOW  WITH  YOUNG. 


served  to  the  last  his  most  startling  bit  of  information:  “The 
tree  that  bore  wool  they  clipped  and  shredded  for  garments.” 
Surely  this  is  our  earliest  reference  to  cotton,  probably  the  low 
shrub  imported  from  India.  It  is  but  a  tiny  seed,  but  from  it 
was  to  grow  some  of  the  mightiest  trees  in  the  industrial  jun¬ 
gle  of  the  present. 

Rarely  in  antiquity  do  we  find  common  objects  in  the  very 
act  of  being  transplanted  from  one  country  to  another,  but 
here  we  learn  the  first  introduction  of  the  Egyptian  well-sweep 
in  place  of  the  old  draw-well.  “That  daily  water  in  abun¬ 
dance  for  irrigation  might  flow,  levers  of  bronze  and  buckets 
of  bronze  I  fashioned,  and  in  the  place  of  the  draw-wells  great 
beams  and  wooden  frameworks  over  the  well-shafts  I  erected.” 
Sennacherib  was  amply  justified  in  representing  this  proto¬ 
type  of  the  “Old  Oaken  Bucket”  and  the  New  England  well- 
sweep  in  his  sculptures.  A  labourer  stands  on  a  pier  in  the 


332 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


river,  separate  from  the  stepped  support  of  the  weighted  pole, 
and  with  the  triangular  buckets  lifts  the  life-giving  fluid  to  two 
higher  levels.  The  introduction  of  such  a  labour-saving  device 
was  compensation  for  many  a  barbarity  inflicted  in  war. 

The  canals  of  Sennacherib  were  not  constructed  solely  for 
the  purpose  of  irrigation  or  for  supplying  water  to  fill  the  pro¬ 
tecting  moats.  Nineveh  stood  on  the  Tigris,  and  Sennacherib 
had  earlier  named  one  of  his  gates  from  the  spot  where  the 
water-carriers  drew  their  supplies  from  the  current.  He  re¬ 
gretted  that  its  citizens  were  forced  to  drink  its  muddy  water, 
carried  in  foul-smelling  goatskins,  or  direct  their  eyes  to  the 
rain  that  comes  down  from  heaven.  Their  reservoirs  were 
out  of  order  and  wells  were  not  to  be  considered,  for  they  could 
only  furnish  the  brackish  water  which  had  percolated  through 
the  gypsum  underlying  the  plain.  Through  a  canal  Sen¬ 
nacherib  brought  a  flood  of  sweet,  never-failing  water  from 
Mount  Tas,  on  the  border  of  Urartu.  The  earlier  name  was 
changed  to  “Sennacherib's  Canal,"  after  the  water  had  been 
brought  from  right  and  left  of  the  mountain  and  a  stone  bed 
had  been  constructed.  To  the  great  gods  he  prayed  and  they 
heard  his  prayer,  they  directed  the  work  of  his  hands.  By 
valves  and  a  tunnel  the  sluices  opened  of  themselves  and  per¬ 
mitted  the  rich  water  to  flow  down;  it  needed  not  the  strength 
of  the  sluice  people  to  open  itself.  According  to  the  wishes  of 
the  god's  heart,  he  had  dug  the  water,  carried  it  from  the 
stream,  and  directed  its  force.  The  gods  who  aided  in  the 
work  were  rewarded  with  great  sacrifices,  the  men  who  dug  it 
were  clothed  in  coloured  garments  and  granted  rings  and  brace¬ 
lets  of  gold.  The  completed  work  is  assigned  to  the  year  and 
day  that  Sennacherib  defeated  Humbanimena,  king  of  Elam 
(691). 

Riding  across  the  rolling  plain  and  following  up  the  line  of 
that  Gomel  River  which  preserves  the  name  of  the  Gau 
Gamela  where  Alexander  won  the  world,  we  pass  the  raised 
stone  track  along  which  went  the  canal.  The  plain  gives  way 
to  a  deep,  narrow  gorge,  sheer  into  the  heart  of  the  limestone 
mountain,  whose  Misuri  clan  of  Kurds  preserves  the  name  of 


Fig.  132.  BULL  FROM  SENNACHERIB’S  WATER  WORKS  AT  BAVIAN 


. 


' 


- 


■ 

1 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


333 


the  ancient  Musri.  Myrtle  and  oleander  make  it  gay  in  sum¬ 
mer,  and  even  in  winter  it  is  pleasant  to  linger  in  its  sheltered 
recesses.  At  the  mouth  lie  the  well-hewn  stones  of  a  small 
city,  higher  up  the  water  flows  from  basin  to  basin,  the  lowest 
with  two  lions  rampant.  The  cliffs  become  precipitous,  and 
on  the  left  we  see  a  sadly  mutilated  relief,  the  main  figure  of 
which  is  a  huge  horseman  with  pointed  helmet  and  short 
square-cut  beard,  driving  his  lance  at  the  enemy.  Before  him 
stands  Sennacherib,  a  deity  with  horned  cap  is  behind,  and 
above  the  gods  stand  on  their  appropriate  animals. 

The  most  impressive  of  these  reliefs  is  the  one  which  fol¬ 
lows.  Two  deities,  Ashur  twice  repeated,  face  each  other  as 
they  are  borne  by  dogs.  They  wear  the  high,  square  head¬ 
dress  with  horns  locked  in  front,  their  left  hands  hold  the 
winged  disk,  their  right  hands  are  extended  in  greeting.  Be¬ 
hind  each  is  the  royal  figure,  one  hand  raised  in  adoration,  the 
other  grasping  the  clubbed  stick.  Above  the  frame,  twenty- 
eight  by  thirty  feet,  and  a  sort  of  overhanging  cornice,  are  two 
crouching  sphinxes.  On  either  side  of  these  are  smaller  rounded 
niches  in  which  are  to  be  seen  figures  of  Sennacherib,  and  if 
their  measurements  are  accurate,  he  was  but  five  and  a  half 
feet  in  height.  On  three  are  inscriptions,  one  easily  accessible, 
the  others  under  the  crest  of  the  cliff,  where  it  is  possible  to 
copy  them  only  with  the  aid  of  a  rope  let  down  from 
above.1 

These  are  the  inscriptions  which  furnished  information  as  to 
the  hydraulic  operations  and  as  to  the  final  capture  of  Baby¬ 
lon.  In  the  edge  of  the  water  below  are  two  massive  fragments 
of  rock  which  have  fallen  from  the  side  of  the  cliff.  Two  huge 
winged  bulls,  back  to  back,  lead  one  in  imagination  to  the 
gateway  of  the  palace.  The  illusion  is  still  further  heightened 
by  the  image  of  the  lion  slaying  Gilgamesh  which  has  been 
carved  between  them,  and  by  the  figures  above,  as  if  in  a  sec¬ 
ond  story,  the  king  worshipping  two  deities  who  stand  on  the 
dragons,  with  eagle  heads,  bodies  and  forefeet  of  lions,  the 
hind  legs  with  the  talons  of  a  beast  of  prey.  Such  animals 

1  As  was  done  by  Professor  Wrench  at  the  time  of  our  visit. 


334 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


were  the  models  from  which  the  great  Nebuchadnezzar  copied 
the  beasts  with  which  he  adorned  the  walls  of  Babylon. 

So  often  have  we  considered  the  Romans  as  the  first  to  de¬ 
velop  the  road  system  in  a  practicable  manner  that  we  can 
with  difficulty  believe  that  they  had  predecessors.  Already 
the  paved  road  and  the  uninscribed  mile-stone  from  Dur  Shar- 
rukin  have  been  brought  to  our  notice.  Sennacherib  has  left 
us  two  stelae  on  which  he  appears  with  long,  flowing  robes, 
pointed  helmet,  and  dagger.  He  tells  us  how  he  enlarged  the 
site  of  Nineveh  and  extended  its  street,  the  track  of  the  royal 
road.  On  a  memorial  stone  he  has  placed  this  order:  “ Royal 
Road,  let  no  man  decrease  it.”  Seventy-eight  feet  he  has 
measured  its  breadth — the  present-day  Federal  Aid  road  is 
generally  thirty — and  if  in  the  future  any  citizen  shall  restore 
his  old  home  or  build  it  anew  from  its  foundation  and  so  en¬ 
croach  on  the  road,  before  his  home  on  a  pole  they  shall  impale 
him.  The  stelae  were  found  southeast  of  the  palace  on  the 
way  to  Arbela,  and  by  their  position  prove  that  this  paved 
road  was  the  ancestor  in  line  as  it  was  doubtless  in  name  of 
the  better-known  Royal  Road  of  Persian  times. 

Sennacherib  has  been  given  the  fame,  in  all  probability  never 
to  be  lost,  of  a  savage  warrior  and  nothing  more.  He  won  the 
hatred  of  the  Babylonians  and  pro-Babylonians  who  compiled 
the  later  narratives,  and  he  had  the  misfortune  to  attempt  the 
subjugation  of  the  Chosen  People.  Tradition  said  that  no 
king,  whatever  his  country,  might  hope  for  immortality  un¬ 
less  he  was  a  successful  imperialist;  Sennacherib  was  no  more 
in  advance  of  his  age  than  have  been  the  modern  statesmen 
who  held  power  in  1914  or  1919.  We  shudder  at  the  thor¬ 
oughness  with  which  he  destroyed  Babylon,  but  we  must  not 
forget  that  cities  have  been  destroyed  in  the  twentieth  century 
which  had  not  betrayed  the  destroyer’s  eldest  son. 

If  justice  has  not  been  done  Sennacherib,  it  is  because  we 
have  not  read  his  own  words.  He  repeatedly  shows  that  he 
was  more  than  a  mere  general.  His  statesmanship  was  vindi¬ 
cated  when  he  refused  to  attempt  the  extension  of  provincial 
organisation  on  the  Egyptian  frontier  and  the  reversal  of  both 


u<>|»|n:i|.ri!s;t|)  NVIAV5I  J,V  IIIH5I I U  )VMN3H 

V.l  NO  MOIMMVM  IK  I  01^1  ^|()  N()U;<I  HIDKN  I  N  V  ..ON  W/A M  1 1  f)K  .. 


SENNACHERIB  THE  CRAFTSMAN 


335 


Babylonian  and  Egyptian  policies  by  his  son  only  proved  by 
the  ruin  they  brought  in  their  train  how  sound  was  his  own. 
His  one  ideal  was  to  be  a  true  Assyrian.  The  misfortunes  of 
his  reign,  above  all,  the  loss  of  his  first-born  in  Babylon,  pre¬ 
vented  overenthusiastic  worship  of  the  Babylonian  civilisa¬ 
tion,  but  it  did  not  mean  that  he  was  opposed  to  the  culture 
of  other  nations.  He  specifically  asserts  that  his  colonnade 
was  made  after  the  “Hittite,”  perhaps  in  reality  Greek,  model, 
his  substitution  of  well-sweep  for  draw-well  was  the  result  of 
contact  with  Egypt,  and  the  clear-story  was  equally  borrowed 
from  that  country. 

Normally  we  do  not  overemphasise  the  individual  ele¬ 
ment  in  the  public  works  attributed  to  the  monarch,  but  Sen¬ 
nacherib  asserts  a  personal  interest.  His  boasts  are  almost 
pathetic  when  he  assures  posterity  that  he  does  know  crafts¬ 
manship,  that  the  god  Nin-igi-azag  did  endow  him  with  clever 
understanding,  that  the  new  process  of  bronze  casting  was  dis¬ 
covered  by  his  own  wisdom  and  by  taking  counsel  with  him¬ 
self.  Other  rulers  claim  all  their  works  for  themselves;  Sen¬ 
nacherib  stands  alone  in  frank  confession  that  he  was  aided  by 
his  architects,  in  recording  the  labours  of  his  workmen  and  the 
rewards  for  those  who  constructed  the  palace  and  brought  the 
watercourses  to  completion.  Only  a  monarch  who  was  known 
to  have  taken  personal  part  in  the  work  could  have  afforded 
to  be  so  generous. 

The  library  begun  by  his  father  was  continued,  and  even 
volumes  in  ancient  dialects  of  the  Shumerian  bore  his  library 
mark.  His  realism  reappears  in  the  reliefs  which  indeed  mark 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  Assyrian  art.  Again  and  again  the 
knowledge  of  the  site  has  shown  that  the  scenery  is  reproduced 
with  photographic  exactness,  so  that,  for  example,  we  can  take 
our  position  at  the  exact  spot  occupied  by  the  artist  when  he 
drew  the  mound  at  Lachish.  For  the  first  time  we  have  back¬ 
ground,  with  full  details  of  natural  features,  and  we  even  have 
the  first  faint  attempts  at  perspective.  Species  of  animals  and 
plants  are  as  readily  distinguished  as  are  localities.  Added  to 
a  strong  feeling  for  the  facts  of  nature  is  a  positive  enjoyment 


336 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  every-day  life — the  lone  fisherman,  the  peasant  with  the 
well-sweep,  the  weary  warriors  happy  over  their  simple  meal. 

Sennacherib  is  the  last  ruler  whose  reputation  would  lead 
us  to  suspect  possession  of  the  more  tender  qualities.  His 
sculptures  show  such  horrors  of  warfare  as  can  be  cited  for 
every  struggle  in  the  world’s  history,  and  wretched  captives 
under  the  sticks  of  taskmasters,  who  are  almost  as  savage  as 
the  men  who  chained  men  naked  in  the  Christian  galleys;  they 
also  show  the  birds  in  their  nests  and  the  little  pigs  following 
their  mother,  the  tender  scenes  among  the  deported.  His  rec¬ 
ords  tell  of  other  horrors  of  war ;  it  is  the  same  Sennacherib  who 
relates  with  sympathy  how  the  crews  of  the  rafts  groaned  and 
were  distressed  in  spirit  as  they  brought  down  the  colossi,  and 
he  is  positively  jubilant  as  he  tells  how  the  workmen  no  longer 
groaned  through  want  of  understanding  when  they  cast  bronze 
and  for  that  they  might  thank  his  own  invention  of  a  new 
process.  Such  sentimentality  rarely  has  practical  effect  on 
the  actual  action  of  a  ruler,  whether  called  king  or  minister, 
yet  it  is  worthy  of  more  than  passing  notice  wrhen  we  find  such 
sentiments  in  the  mouth  of  an  unusually  practical  monarch  in 
such  an  iron  age. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 


ESARHADDON  AND  THE  RESTORATION  OF  BABYLON 

The  restoration  of  Babylon  was  due  to  a  series  of  accidents. 
Sennacherib  possessed  at  least  two  legal  wives,  the  elder 
Tashmetum-sharrat,  who  lived  for  a  time  in  the  palace  of 
Ashur-nasir-apal  at  Ashur,  and  the  younger,  Naqia,  whose 
west  Semitic  name  was  translated  by  the  Assyrians  as  Zakutu, 
the  “Freed.”  Of  the  former  queen  would  seem  to  have  been 
born  the  eldest  son,  Ashur-nadin-shum,  whose  untimely  fate 
we  have  already  learned.  His  title  of  crown  prince  was  trans¬ 
ferred  in  October  of  the  year  of  his  brother’s  death,  694,  to 
Arad  Ninlil,  but  he  too  soon  disappeared.1 

Esarhaddon  had  spent  his  early  life  with  no  expectation  of 
the  throne.  He  had  many  enemies  at  court,  and  the  scribes 
and  seers,  in  particular  one  Kalbi,  son  of  Nergal-etir,  in  tablet 
after  tablet  had  reported  to  Sennacherib  that  Esarhaddon 
marched  with  an  unfavourable  and  black  sign.  His  father, 
however,  made  inquiry  of  Shamash  and  Adad,  the  lords  of 
decision,  and  they  returned  favourable  answer,  saying:  “He  is 
thy  associate.”  Their  weighty  decision  he  respected,  and  col¬ 
lected  the  men  of  Assyria,  great  and  small,  with  all  his  other 
sons,  and  before  the  gods  dwelling  in  heaven  and  earth  he 
made  them  swear  to  defend  the  rule  of  his  new  colleague.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  new  year,  Esarhaddon  entered  with  joy 
the  Succession  House,  the  place  of  fear,  wherein  the  fates  of 
royalty  are  found. 

His  name,  Ashur-ahi-iddina,  “Ashur  has  added  a  brother,” 
proved  only  too  well  that  he  was  not  the  first-born,  and  he 
therefore  received  the  more  impressive  Ashur-etil-ilani-mukin- 
apal,  “Ashur,  lord  of  the  gods,  has  established  an  heir.”  An 
unusual  honour  was  paid  to  the  new  prince.  The  year  687  had 
been  especially  honoured  by  receiving  Sennacherib  himself  as 

1  For  Babylonian  relations,  cf.  AJSL.,  XXXVIII,  83  ff. 

337 


338 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


eponym;  he  now  transferred  the  honour  to  Esarhaddon  as  a 
sort  of  consul  suffectus,  and  official  texts  were  dated  by  the 
name  of  the  new  eponym.  Like  his  elder  brother,  Esarhaddon 
was  made  “  governor  of  Babylon,  holder  of  the  reins  over  the 
black-headed  folk.”  However  much  his  sympathies  may  have 
been  with  the  repressive  policies  of  his  father,  he  was  soon 
won  over  and  became  strongly  pro-Babylonian. 

But  there  were  other  children  in  the  royal  family:  his  sister 
Shaditu,  for  whom  Shumai  completed  certain  rites  which 
“ caused  the  mother  to  receive  offspring”;1  Arad  Malik ;  Ashur- 
shum-ushabshi,  who  received  from  his  father  a  residence  in  the 
gardens  of  Nineveh;  and  the  young  Ashur-ilu-mubalitsu,  who 
was  installed  in  a  house  of  limestone.  There  were  enough 
leaders  in  Assyria  who  suspected  the  effect  of  a  residence  in 
Bab3donia  and  would  support  any  member  of  the  royal  family 
who  might  challenge  his  right  to  the  throne.  In  the  words  of 
Esarhaddon:  “An  unloyal  thought  seized  my  brothers,  the 
gods  they  abandoned,  they  plotted  evil,  a  deed  which  was  not 
according  to  the  heart  of  the  gods  they  planned  behind  my 
back.  In  opposition  to  the  gods,  they  wished  to  turn  the  heart 
of  my  father  against  me,  the  humble,  but  his  heart  loved  me 
and  his  eyes  were  fixed  upon  my  rule.  They  revolted,  and  to 
secure  the  kingship  Sennacherib  they  killed.” 

The  revolt  broke  out  in  the  beginning  of  680,  while  Esar¬ 
haddon  was  living  as  crown  prince  in  the  city  of  Zaqqap. 
There  was  constant  danger  of  assassination,  his  attendants 
were  doubtful,  even  his  mother  hesitated  to  urge  him  upon  an 
adventure  which  might  end  his  life.  Then  up  rose  the  magi¬ 
cian  Bel-ushezib  and  prophesied  to  the  magician  Dada  and 
then  to  the  queen  mother  herself,  declaring  that  her  son  was 
destined  to  obtain  the  kingship,  rebuild  Babylon,  and  restore 
its  temple  Esagila. 

An  important  acquisition  to  the  would-be  king’s  party  was 
Akkullanu.  He  has  taken  the  oath  and  the  king  shall  see 
that  he  is  devoted  to  his  service.  From  his  heart  he  spoke 
when  he  declared:  “Before  the  king  I  shall  walk.”  The  king 

1 H.  57. 


ESARHADDON 


339 


has  asked  him  about  an  image  which  remained  from  the  mid¬ 
dle  of  July  to  the  beginning  of  August  in  the  city  of  Akkad; 
it  should  be  made  in  the  city  and  there  take  away  his  illness, 
and  he  asks:  “Why  are  you  and  why  the  crown  of  Akkad ?” 
They  have  told  the  king:  “Thy  father  was  in  the  midst  of  the 
house  of  their  protection.”  The  king  will  inquire  why  he  has 
spoken  of  his  image,  in  the  midst  of  the  eclipse  of  Nisan.  He 
interprets  the  omen:  When  Jupiter  meets  with  eclipse,  it  will 
be  well  with  the  king,  the  family  of  the  nobility  will  be  power¬ 
ful,  the  decrepit  will  cease.  It  has  come  to  his  ear  that  before 
a  month  of  days  has  passed,  his  opponent  will  be  dead.  Let 
the  king  perform  the  freeing  incantation  a  second  time,  for 
why  should  he  wait  until  the  actual  necessity  be  upon  him? 
If  he  had  not  spoken  to  the  king  this  day,  would  he  not  de¬ 
mand  on  the  next  why  he  had  not  filled  the  basin  and  shown 
wisdom  ?  It  has  been  nearly  a  month  since  he  has  heard  from 
the  king,  but  now  he  is  rejoiced  since  the  king  is  well.1 

Adad-ahi-iddina  too  sent  the  king  a  word  of  cheer.  Belit- 
abi-usur,  the  female  magician,  has  brought  the  royal  garments 
to  Akkad.  She  prophesies  return  to  Assyria  and  the  securing 
of  the  royal  throne.  She  brings  an  oracle  from  Ishtar:  “The 
enemies  of  the  king  I  shall  conquer,  those  who  take  not  the 
side  of  the  king  I  shall  not  grant  a  throne.”  If  the  king  give 
permission,  let  them  take  immediate  action.2 

Through  her  accredited  representatives,  Ishtar  raised  her 
voice.  Sharply  she  takes  Zakutu  to  task.  The  queen  mother 
has  begun  legal  action  against  her  and  has  demanded:  “Of  the 
two  sons  thou  hast  placed  to  right  and  left  in  my  bosom, 
where  is  the  offspring  of  my  heart  whom  thou  hast  left  to  fall 
on  the  plain?”  Though  his  own  mother  forsake  him,  yet  is 
the  king  no  longer  to  fear;  let  him  seize  the  kingship  and  the 
power.  Esarhaddon  was  still  fearful  and  Ishtar  herself  went 
out  into  the  plain,  whence  she  sent  her  greetings  to  her  son  in 
the  city:  “Fear  not,  0  Esarhaddon,  I  am  Ishtar  of  Arbela, 
with  good  have  I  filled  thy  lap.  The  former  words  which  I 
spake  to  thee  hast  thou  not  trusted,  now  shalt  thou  trust  the 
1  H.  48;  46.  2  H.  149. 


340 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


f 


latter.  The  tattered  garments  from  my  palace  take  out,  well 
prepared  food  shalt  thou  eat,  well-mixed  beverages  shalt  thou 
drink,  in  thy  palace  shalt  thou  be  firmly  fixed,  thy  son  and 
thy  son’s  son  shall  carry  on  the  royal  line  on  the  lap  of  Urta.” 

Nor  did  Ishtar  stand  alone.  Since  the  city  of  Ashur  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  rival  party,  it  might  be  assumed  that  the 
titular  god  of  the  empire  would  be  constrained  to  take  their 
side,  but  Ishtar  assured  the  doubting  king  that  she  had  per¬ 
suaded  Ashur  to  be  propitious;  she  had  stood  beside  him  in 
his  youth,  need  he  fear  now?  Nabu,  lord  of  the  writing  pen, 
could  ask:  “ Where  is  that  foe  who  came  forth  against  thee? 
Verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  the  future  will  be  as  the  past.”  Bel 
Marduk,  an  unwilling  captive  in  Ashur,  likewise  spoke  through 
Ishtar’s  representative:  “Fear  not,  O  Esarhaddon,  it  is  I,  the 
Lord,  who  am  speaking  with  thee,  the  beams  of  thy  heart  will 
I  fortify,  even  as  thy  mother  who  gave  thee  birth.  The  sixty 
great  gods  who  are  with  me  will  protect  thee  during  thy  life, 
Sin  is  on  thy  right  hand,  Shamash  on  thy  left,  the  sixty  great 
gods  round  about  thee  have  taken  their  stand,  thy  line  of  bat¬ 
tle  they  form.  Put  not  thy  trust  in  men,  lift  up  thine  eyes  and 
look  on  me.” 

So  Esarhaddon  rent  his  clothes  and  wept;  he  was  fierce  as 
a  lion  and  his  liver  cried  out.  To  assume  sovereignty  in  his 
father’s  house  and  to  invest  himself  with  the  priesthood,  he 
raised  his  hands  to  the  gods  who  looked  with  favour  on  his 
petition,  and  in  their  eternal  mercy  they  sent  this  oracle:  “Go, 
delay  not;  at  thy  side  we  will  march  and  will  subjugate  thy 
enemies.”  Thus  encouraged,  he  waited  neither  one  day  nor 
two.  The  van  of  his  army  he  did  not  inspect,  the  horses  for 
the  yoked  teams  he  did  not  prepare,  provisions  for  the  cam¬ 
paign  he  did  not  issue.  He  feared  not  the  snows  and  cold  of 
February  or  the  sharpness  of  the  frost,  like  a  flying  swallow  he 
extended  his  forces  for  the  overthrow  of  his  enemies.  The 
road  to  Nineveh  with  haste  and  difficulty  he  went  down. 

Arrived  in  Arbela,  he  was  hailed  by  Rimute,  the  seeress  who 
counted  her  origin  from  the  mountain  fortress  of  Darahuia:  “I 
will  rejoice  with  Esarhaddon,  my  king;  rejoice,  O  Arbela.” 


ESARHADDON 


341 


Then  followed  a  whole  series  of  oracles  from  Ishtar-bel-daini, 
the  royal  prophetess:  “I  am  Ishtar  of  Arbela;  O  Esarhaddon, 
king  of  Assyria,  in  Ashur,  Nineveh,  Kalhu,  and  Arbela,  dis¬ 
tant  days,  eternal  years,  to  Esarhaddon  my  king  will  I  give. 
Thy  great  protector,  thy  kindly  nurse  am  I.”  “For  distant 
days  and  eternal  years  thy  throne  beneath  the  great  heavens 
have  I  established;  with  nails  of  gold  in  the  midst  will  I  fix  it. 
The  gleam  of  the  diamond  before  Esarhaddon,  king  of  Assyria, 
will  I  make  to  shine.  As  the  crown  of  my  head  have  I  fixed 
it.”  “Esarhaddon,  true  son  of  the  Mistress,  mighty  sword, 
with  my  hands  shall  I  annihilate  thy  enemies.  Esarhaddon, 
king  of  Assyria,  thou  cup  filled  with  gifts,  thou  mace  with 
double  axe,  distant  days  and  eternal  years  in  Ashur  do  I  give 
thee.  Esarhaddon,  thy  good  shield  in  Arbela  am  I.  Esar¬ 
haddon,  true  son  of  the  Mistress,  thy  understanding  is  sound, 
greatly  do  I  love  thee.  On  the  earth  is  thy  seed,  in  the  great 
heavens  thy  family.  On  thy  right  will  I  burn  incense,  on  thy 
left  will  I  make  fire  to  consume  it.”  “The  deceitful  snares 
which  they  plan  shall  I  cut  off  from  before  his  feet.  Thou, 
even  thou,  art  king,  0  my  king.”  1 

In  the  capital,  all  was  chaos.  When  the  news  was  made 
public  that  Sennacherib  was  dead,  the  wife  of  the  governor 
of  Ashur  hastily  entered  the  palace  to  comfort  him,  but  he 
sent  her  out.  The  inhabitants  wept,  a  kid  was  sacrificed,  the 
officials  placed  rings  on  their  fingers  and  clothed  themselves  in 
red,  the  colour  of  death.  They  took  their  position  before 
their  chief  and  Qisa  the  singer,  with  his  daughters,  made  music 
before  them.  They  spoke  to  the  prophet.  The  fastenings  of 
the  gate  were  opened,  Danai  brought  forth  the  dead  body,  the 
other  officials  followed.  The  governor  and  his  troops  were 
covered  with  wrappings  and  the  partisans  of  Esarhaddon 
frankly  admit  that  at  first  they  feared  when  they  saw  the 
drawn  iron  daggers  of  the  governor  of  Ashur  and  his  assassins. 

After  a  time  they  plucked  up  courage  and  demanded  of  the 
messenger  Hambi:  “Why  do  we  merely  weep?  The  governor 
and  his  men  are  standing  with  drawn  daggers  at  our  heads, 
1 IV  R.,  61;  Jastrow,  Religion ,  II,  158  ff.;  Langdon,  Tammuz ,  128  ff. 


342 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


both  in  the  palace  and  in  the  government  house.”  Thus  en¬ 
couraged,  Hambi  went  to  the  lock  and  gave  order:  “Open  the 
door.”  While  he  was  engaged  in  putting  to  death  the  sons 
of  Zazaku,  the  writers  had  killed  the  governor,  and  the  oppo¬ 
sition  to  Esarhaddon  collapsed.1 

In  more  flowery,  though  hardly  more  exact  language,  Esar¬ 
haddon  himself  tells  of  this  same  failure  of  his  enemies  to  re¬ 
tain  possession  of  the  capital:  “The  deeds  of  the  miserable 
ones,  which  contrary  to  the  hearts  of  the  gods  they  did,  they 
looked  upon  for  evil,  they  took  not  their  positions  at  their 
sides,  their  strength  they  made  foolish,  under  me  they  laid 
them  low.  The  men  of  Assyria  who  had  taken  the  oath  of  the 
great  gods  by  water  and  by  oil  to  my  rights  to  the  succession 
and  had  then  gone  with  them  as  helpers  heard  of  the  advance 
of  my  battle  line,  their  troops  they  forsook,  they  fled  and  I 
captured  them.” 

From  Ashur  the  army  marched  north  along  the  Tigris. 
Across  the  surging  flood,  now  raised  higher  still  by  the  access 
of  water  from  the  newly  melted  snow  of  the  mountains,  lay 
Nineveh.  Appalled  by  the  difficulties  to  be  faced  in  the  tak¬ 
ing  of  the  quay  walls  erected  by  his  father,  Esarhaddon  again 
made  trial  of  the  oracle  and  was  reassured:  “Fear  not,  0  king, 
it  is  I  who  am  speaking  with  thee;  I  will  not  reject  thee,  I  will 
give  thee  courage,  I  will  not  make  thee  ashamed.  The  river 
in  safety  I  will  make  thee  to  cross.”  So,  by  order  of  Sin  and 
Shamash,  the  gods  of  the  quay,  the  troops  reached  the  Tigris 
river  wall  and  crossed  the  broad  stream  as  if  it  had  been  a 
mere  ditch.  On  the  feast  of  Nabu,  celebrated  in  the  middle  of 
March,  Nineveh  was  entered,  and  Esarhaddon  sat  on  the 
throne  of  his  father  in  joy. 

The  final  resistance  of  the  rebels  was  still  to  be  broken. 
The  south  wind,  the  wind  of  the  god  Ea,  whose  breath  for  the 
instituting  of  royalty  is  good,  went  with  them.  By  favourable 
signs  in  heaven  and  earth,  and  by  the  words  of  the  prophets, 
the  gods  regularly  furnished  him  information  and  reassured 
his  heart.  In  Hani  Galbat  all  the  mighty  warriors  attacked 

1 H.  473. 


ESARHADDON 


343 


his  advanced  guard,  but  the  fear  of  the  great  gods  destroyed 
them.  They  saw  the  onrush  of  his  weapons  and  panic  seized 
upon  them.  Ishtar,  mistress  of  conflict  and  battle,  because 
she  loved  his  priesthood,  stood  at  his  side  and  broke  their 
bows.  Their  ordered  line  of  battle  she  destroyed  and  in  their 
assembly  they  said:  “This  is  our  king.7’  By  her  illustrious 
command  they  took  their  position  at  his  side  and  followed 
like  young  lambs,  submissive  and  beseeching  his  lordship.1 

The  fleeing  forces  were  followed  as  far  as  Carchemish,  where 
an  advance  of  oil  for  the  king’s  household  testifies  to  the  royal 
presence.  His  two  brothers,  Adrammelech,  who  may  be  Arad 
Malik,  and  Sharezer,  perhaps  the  Nabu-shar-usur  who  was 
chief  eunuch  and  governor  of  Marqasi  in  682,  are  said  to  have 
taken  refuge  in  Ararat,2  that  is,  Urartu.  Esarhaddon  returned 
home  to  devote  his  attention  to  the  most  pressing  of  the  do¬ 
mestic  problems.  His  followers  must  be  rewarded.  Bel-ushe- 
zib,  for  example,  had  prophesied  his  coming  dominion  when 
all  in  Babylonia  were  in  fear  of  their  lives.  He  feels  that  the 
king  has  now  forgotten  him,  and  for  the  third  time  he  bewails 
his  misfortune,  since  the  king  will  not  raise  his  head  or  do  as 
he  has  been  done  by,  and  he  modestly  suggests  that  a  talent 
of  silver  would  be  appropriate  reward  for  his  good  deeds. 
Esarhaddon  compromised  by  making  him  a  royal  astrologer.3 

How  serious  had  been  the  breakdown  in  administration  is 
well  indicated  by  the  letters  of  another  faithful  follower,  Akkul- 
lanu,  who  had  been  rewarded  with  the  task  of  reorganising  the 
city  of  Ashur.  The  stated  dues  of  the  god  had  fallen  into 
arrears  and  the  king  had  demanded  the  names  of  the  officials 
who  had  not  paid.  The  list  is  surprising:  Barhalza,  south  of 
Nineveh;  Rasappa,  west  of  the  capital;  Kakzu,  just  south  of 
Arbela;  Tille,  at  the  junction  of  the  Tigris  streams;  Isana,  west 
of  Ashur ;  Arpad  in  the  centre  and  Kullania  in  the  west  of  north 
Syria.  A  still  larger  group  had  not  turned  in  the  barley  and 
emmer.  Included  are  again  Barhalza,  Rasappa,  Isana,  and 

1  Sources  for  reign,  Budge,  History  of  Esarhaddon ,  1880;  Abel-Winckler,  KB., 
II,  124  ff.;  Harper,  Literature ,  80  ff.;  cf.  Historiography,  47;  a  badly  needed  new 
edition  is  in  preparation  by  Hoschander. 

2 II  Kings  19  :  37.  3  H.  1216;  Thompson,  Reports,  90. 


344 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


to  them  must  be  added  Halzi  Atbar,  Urzuhina,  and  Diquqina 
on  the  road  to  Babylon,  Birtum,  Sharish,  Parnunna,  Rimusi, 
all  to  the  north,  Guzana  in  the  fertile  plain  northwest  of  Nin¬ 
eveh,  and,  most  disconcerting  of  all,  Arbela  herself,  so  busy 
producing  oracles  of  encouragement  that  she  had  quite  for¬ 
gotten  the  more  material  recognition  of  the  new  monarch. 
Sixteen  provinces  are  more  or  less  remiss  in  the  payment  of 
their  dues,  and  every  part  of  the  empire,  from  frontier  post 
to  religious  capital,  is  represented. 

Equally  disturbing  was  the  situation  if  one  turned  to  the 
religious  houses.  A  sort  of  visitation  had  been  ordered  for 
Ashur,  and  the  report  was  sufficient  to  cause  grave  concern. 
The  recorder  of  the  bakehouse,  a  mere  youth,  had  been  re¬ 
moved  by  Sennacherib;  he  had  been  slandered  by  Ashur-zer- 
iddina,  priest  of  Nineveh,  and  “in  the  troubles ”  being  afraid, 
he  received  his  turban,  that  is,  had  him  beheaded,  although  he 
had  not  committed  a  serious  crime.  The  recorder  of  the  store¬ 
keeper  lifted  up  the  wooden  dish  of  Ashur;  therefore  Sen¬ 
nacherib  gave  him  charge  of  Ashur’s  dish.  He  is  a  turban- 
wearer’s  son  and  was  not  removed  without  reason.  The  food 
overseer  also  fell  into  the  bad  graces  of  Sennacherib,  who  re¬ 
ceived  the  son  of  his  turban,  another  oriental  euphemism 
meaning  that  he  cut  off  his  head.  It  is  now>eight  years  since 
he  died,  and  his  son  stands  in  his  office.1 

The  official  who  is  over  the  house  of  the  seers  is  dead,  and 
Akkullanu  sends  on  to  the  king  his  son,  his  brother’s  son,  the 
cousin  of  the  second  priest,  that  the  king  may  decide  after  a 
personal  conference  to  whom  the  office  should  be  given.  As 
to  the  priest  of  the  god  Iminbi  of  the  city  of  Nineveh,  of  whom 
he  had  already  told  the  king  “There  is  information  in  his 
mouth,  question  him,”  the  king  has  ordered  that  he  be  brought 
to  his  presence,  but  no  one  has  inquired  of  him.2 

Formerly  Ashur  and  his  consort  Ninlil  went  forth  in  peace 
and  entered  in  quietness,  and  as  many  gods  as  went  forth  with 
Ashur  entered  in  peace  their  abodes.  Formerly  they  filled 
vessels  with  wine  and  placed  them  before  the  table  of  the 

1  H.  43.  2  577.  49 g 


ESARHADDON 


345 


king.  Now,  although  it  is  already  October,  there  is  neither 
wine  nor  vessels  to  fill  before  Ashur,  there  is  neither  chief  cel¬ 
larer  nor  deputy  nor  scribe.  Foot  by  foot  they  have  ceased 
work,  and  although  Akkullanu  has  reported  the  case  to  the 
king,  the  king  has  not  instituted  an  inquiry.  A  tablet  of  gold 
has  disappeared  from  the  Ashur  temple  and  has  been  seen  in 
the  hands  of  the  jeweller,  Qurdi  Nergal.  At  once  Akkullanu 
made  inquiry  of  the  scribe  under  whose  charge  it  was,  but  the 
king  should  conduct  the  investigation  further.  He  need  not 
ask  Tab-shar  Sin,  for  he  has  eaten  a  gift  from  the  thief.  Let 
him  rather  ask  the  men  who  in  company  and  regularly  eat  the 
gifts  of  the  Ashur  temple.  Sin-naid  was  appointed  an  over¬ 
seer  of  the  city  of  Ashur  by  the  king.  He  has  inquired  about 
the  gold,  he  has  sent  the  name  of  the  thief  to  the  king.  On 
the  21st  the  gold  was  given  to  Tab-shar  Sin,  it  was  taken  out 
to  be  set  before  the  king.  Let  Nabu-ahe-ushallim  come,  let 
him  continue  the  investigation.  Nabu-belshunu  orders  Ashur- 
mudammiq  to  give  silver,  whether  two  or  three  pounds,  as 
much  as  Akkullanu  asks,  for  the  breaks  in  the  houses  of  Ashur 
and  Ninlil,  let  them  examine  it  together,  let  them  bring  his 
stylus  before  him,  let  one  receive  its  return,  let  Nabu-belshunu 
write  it  on  his  tablet.1 

The  king  may  ask  what  sort  of  work  Akkullanu  is  doing  for 
the  life  and  well-being  of  his  lord.  He  is  to  carry  the  axe  three 
times  before  Dilbat.  As  to  the  appearance  of  Sin  and  Shamash 
in  conjunction  and  accompanied  by  a  heavy  wind  on  the  14th 
of  January,  it  signifies  misfortune  for  Akkad  as  well  as  for 
Elam  and  Amurru.  Shall  he  come  for  the  royal  sacrifices  of 
burnt  offerings  or  shall  he  remain  where  he  is  ?  Will  the  king 
speak  as  is  his  wont:  “Why  have  you  not  reminded  me?” 
When  the  sun  rises,  an  eclipse  two  fingers  broad  will  take  place. 
There  is  not  in  existence  a  freeing  incantation  against  it;  it  is 
not  as  if  it  were  the  moon.  If  the  king  gives  orders,  he  will 
write  down  the  interpretation  and  send  it  to  him.  The  planet 
Mars  has  entered  the  road  of  Enlil,  the  constellation  of  the 
Pleiades  has  been  seen,  it  was  faint,  it  was  high.  On  the  26th 

1  H.  42;  429;  150;  185. 


346 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  May  he  watched  until  it  rose  higher  and  then  sent  its  mean¬ 
ing:  When  Mars  nears  the  Pleiades,  a  war  will  break  out  in 
Amurru,  brother  will  kill  brother  in  the  palace,  the  prince,  who 
is  a  wall  of  protection,  will  go  to  another  land,  through  the 
wicked  revolts  of  its  king,  its  gods  against  the  enemy  will 
cause  him  to  hasten.  To-morrow,  about  evening,  a  libation 
will  be  offered  in  Tarbisu  for  the  king.  Shall  he  go  or  will  he 
be  told  that  he  has  not  reminded  the  king?  They  shall  not 
make  this  charge  against  him.  The  king  has  demanded  why 
he  inquired  of  the  god;  impatiently  Akkullanu  replies:  “To 
whom  are  his  eyes  directed,  from  them  should  I  inquire?”  1 

Akkullanu  was  not  the  only  official  who  had  complaints  to 
make.  Ashur-risua  informs  the  king  that  in  his  father’s  time 
the  housekeeper  of  Urta’s  temple  took  three  fingers  of  gold 
from  the  golden  beams  at  the  head  of  the  god,  but  reported  it 
to  Sennacherib.  Later  they  cut  off  a  strip  a  foot  and  a  half 
wide  by  seventeen  feet  long  and  broke  off  some  of  the  silver 
from  the  wall.  Nabu-eriba,  the  kalu  priest,  and  Galib,  the 
guard  in  the  god’s  house,  were  the  lords  of  the  breaking.  Their 
companions,  the  men  who  were  with  them,  they  made  come 
out.  Ashur-risua  and  the  overseer  of  Kalhu  brought  them  to 
Shangu  Ishtar,  the  ridu  official  of  Ishtar,  the  chief  doorkeeper. 
He  has  seen  it,  let  the  king  ask  him  how  much  was  broken 
off.  However,  he  does  not  know  how  much  was  restored. 
Their  profanation  has  come  into  the  temple,  to  Sennacherib 
their  profanation  came.  Some  of  them  were  trustworthy,  but 
not  one  of  them  remains.2 

A  case  at  law  still  further  illustrates  the  prevailing  chaos. 
While  Esarhaddon  was  yet  crown  prince,  a  certain  Hani  had 
been  given  charge  of  three  hundred  of  his  sheep.  Taking  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  confusion,  Hani  sold  the  sheep  and  killed  the 
shepherds,  that  they  might  not  witness  against  him.  In  679 
he  was  brought  before  the  chief  judge  of  Assyria  and  was  con¬ 
demned  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  sheep  and  additional  blood- 
money  to  the  extent  of  two  talents  of  gold  for  each  man  mur¬ 
dered.  Until  these  impossibly  high  sums  had  been  paid  or 
1  H.  45;  50;  470;  679;  47;  681.  2  H.  493. 


ESARHADDON 


0  4  7 
0-1  i 

until  he  was  redeemed  by  his  brother  or  his  captain,  he  was  to 
remain  enslaved.1 

The  new  regime,  it  was  already  clear,  was  to  be  under  the 
ghostly  control  of  the  priestly  advisers.  Priestly  influence  was 
connected  always  with  reverence  for  Babylon.  Zakutu,  mother 
of  Esarhaddon,  manifested  a  marked  interest  in  Babylonia; 
here  were  her  special  cities,  Lahiru  and  Shabbu;  when  ill,  she 
felt  the  hand  of  Nana,  goddess  of  Uruk,  strongly  upon  her;  to 
mitigate  the  wrath  of  the  goddess,  Esarhaddon  reconstructed 
the  chapel  of  Nana  in  the  Eanna  temple  of  that  city.  His 
wife  was  likewise  a  native  of  Babylonia.  Adding  force  to  all 
these  family  influences  was  the  fact  that  his  rebel  brothers  had 
found  their  support  in  Assyria;  indeed,  it  is  not  beyond  the 
bounds  of  probability  that  the  support  of  the  south  was  pur¬ 
chased  only  by  the  promise  of  restoration  for  the  capital. 

So,  when  Iddina-sharru  and  his  son  Zakir  wrote  to  remind 
him  of  the  manner  in  which  the  last  Tiglath  Pileser  and  his 
successors  had  guarded  the  chartered  rights  of  Babylon  and 
had  firmly  established  the  income  of  Esagila  and  Ezida,  Esar¬ 
haddon  was  prepared  to  listen  to  their  overtures.  Very  viv¬ 
idly  does  he  place  before  us  the  sorrows  of  the  stricken  city, 
though  none  would  suspect  that  the  king  he  is  so  careful  not 
to  name  is  his  own  father. 

Before  his  time,  under  the  rule  of  a  former  king,  hostile 
forces  gained  control  in  Shumer  and  Akkad.  The  men  who 
dwelt  in  Babylon  intrigued  and  planned  insurrection.  On 
Esagila,  the  temple  of  the  gods,  they  laid  their  hands,  and  the 
gold  and  the  precious  stones  they  sent  as  a  bribe  to  Elam. 
Marduk,  lord  of  the  gods,  was  enraged,  and  formed  hostile 
plans  for  the  overthrow  of  the  land  and  the  destruction  of  the 
men.  Ashur  swore  an  oath  that  was  destined  to  bring  ill  luck 
and  the  heavens  displayed  signs  of  evil  portent.  The  Arahtu 
Canal,  a  river  of  plenty,  a  mighty  flood,  was  brought  against 
the  city  like  a  deluge  and  the  site  was  made  like  ploughland. 
The  gods  and  goddesses  who  dwelt  within  like  birds  ascended 
to  heaven. 


1  J.  164. 


348 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


But  the  merciful  lord  Marduk  had  inscribed  no  more  than 
ten  years  as  the  time  of  its  ruin,  for  the  compassionate  Marduk 
was  speedily  appeased  in  his  heart,  he  spoke  peace  and  return 
to  the  lower  country.  Esarhaddon  he  chose  from  among  his 
elder  brethren  and  assigned  him  the  rule  of  Assyria.  In  the 
beginning  of  his  reign  and  in  his  first  regnal  year,  when  he  had 
seated  himself  with  might  on  the  throne  of  his  royalty,  favour¬ 
able  signs  appeared  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Jupiter  neared 
the  sun,  was  seen,  disappeared,  changed  himself,  and  reached 
the  point  where  he  was  seen  again  and  stood  fast  in  his  dwell¬ 
ing  a  long  time.  The  stars  of  heaven  went  to  their  places, 
took  the  right  way,  abandoned  the  wrong;  month  by  month 
the  moon  and  the  sun  worked  together  to  renew  the  gods, 
complete  the  temples,  strengthen  his  rule,  and  establish  the 
throne  of  his  priesthood. 

By  the  wisdom  which  Ashur  and  Marduk  had  granted  him, 
Esarhaddon  besought  these  two  deities:  “ Kings  of  the  great 
gods,  creators  of  gods  and  goddesses,  to  a  dark  place  and  a 
difficult  task  have  ye  sent  me,  a  work  of  renewal  with  men 
who  are  disobedient  and  lacking  in  understanding  since  an¬ 
cient  days.  Ye  who  have  created  gods  and  goddesses  with 
your  hands,  do  ye  yourselves  act  as  builders,  and  the  shrine  of 
your  exalted  godhead  shall  be  made  according  to  your  desire, 
without  change  of  your  orders.  Grant  to  the  learned  experts, 
whom  ye  have  called  for  this  task,  an  exalted  understanding 
like  Ea,  the  creator,  and  may  their  wisdom  and  their  under¬ 
standing  through  your  exalted  word  complete  all  the  work  of 
their  hands  through  the  word  of  Nin-igi-azag.” 

Before  the  judgment  of  Shamash  and  Adad  he  bowed  down, 
and  by  their  gracious  order  he  caused  the  sons  of  the  seers  to 
enter  the  House  of  Wisdom.  The  requisite  information  as  to 
Ashur,  Babylon,  and  Nineveh  was  given  in  a  dream  sent  to 
the  king.  They  should  enter  the  House  of  Wisdom  which  was 
in  Ashur,  the  city  of  government,  the  abode  of  the  god  Ashur, 
father  of  the  gods,  and  they  gave  the  names  of  the  skilled 
workmen  who  were  to  take  part.  On  a  favourable  day  of  the 
favourable  month  of  February,  Esarhaddon  himself  entered  the 


ESARHADDON 


349 


House  of  Wisdom,  the  place  of  renewing  whatever  the  heart 
desires,  and  summoned  the  carpenters,  the  stone-masons,  the 
metal-workers,  and  the  architects,  the  skilled  workmen,  and 
set  forth  to  them  the  building  which  Shamash  and  Adad  had 
showm  in  a  dream.  Ashur  was  bribed  with  a  crown  of  red 
gold  and  precious  stones,  so  that  he  too  looked  now  with  favour 
on  the  undertaking,  and  the  other  gods,  those  of  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  rivals  of  Babylon  especially,  Borsippa,  Der,  Larsa,  Sip- 
par,  were  likewise  conciliated.  All  the  skilled  workmen  and 
the  men  of  the  corvee  were  levied  for  the  undertaking,  they 
were  made  to  carry  the  yoke  and  on  them  was  laid  the  corvee. 

On  an  auspicious  day  and  month  gold  and  silver,  food,  spices, 
honey,  oil,  cream,  wine,  sesame  brandy,  wine  from  the  snow 
mountains,  were  laid  upon  the  foundation.  The  foundation- 
stone  was  placed  by  the  king  on  his  head  and  carried  to  the 
place  where  it  was  to  be  laid.  With  a  mould  of  ivory,  box, 
ebony,  and  palm,  bricks  were  formed.  To  the  ground  water 
they  went  down  and  the  terrace  was  made  greater  with  bricks 
held  together  with  bitumen.  The  doors  were  of  cypress  whose 
scent  is  good,  overlaid  with  gold,  silver,  and  bronze.  Fifty 
pounds  of  gold  and  silver  went  into  utensils.  All  the  various 
grades  of  priests  and  attendants  were  reinstated,  the  images 
of  the  captive  gods  were  returned  from  Assyria  and  Elam  and 
were  placed  in  their  respective  shrines.  For  an  eternal  pre¬ 
scription  the  fixed  offerings  which  had  fallen  into  disuse  were 
re-established. 

The  city  likewise  rose  from  its  ruins.  Imgur  Bel,  the  inner 
wall,  and  Nimitti  Bel,  the  outer,  were  rebuilt  from  foundation 
to  coping.  The  sons  of  Babylon,  who  had  gone  into  slavery 
and  had  been  given  over  to  bond  and  band,  were  reassembled 
and  given  peaceful  habitations  once  more.  Formerly  they  had 
been  "men  with  (definite)  duties/’  "men  of  privilege,”  "men 
under  the  protection  of  Anu  and  Bel,”  and  they  had  enjoyed 
"autonomy.”  Their  "privilege,”  which  had  fallen  into  dis¬ 
use,  was  returned  to  its  place,  and  the  "tablet  of  their  freedom 
from  taxes”  was  written  anew.  To  the  four  winds  their  way 
was  opened,  and  with  the  whole  of  the  lands  they  might  have 


350 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


speech  and  carry  on  business.  So  Babylon  became  once  more 
a  “city  of  privileges/*  an  imperial  free  city,  and  similar  rights 
were  granted  to  Nippur,  Borsippa,  Sippar,  and  Der. 

We  should  expect  to  find  many  traces  of  the  building  activi¬ 
ties  of  Esarhaddon,  but  such  is  not  the  case.  In  part  this  is 
due  to  the  almost  complete  reconstruction  undergone  by  Baby¬ 
lon  at  the  hands  of  Nebuchadnezzar;  it  is  also  possible  that  the 
destruction  was  not  so  complete  as  Sennacherib  and  Esar¬ 
haddon  would  make  it  to  have  been.  Bricks  of  Esarhaddon 
have  indeed  been  found,  claiming  the  renewal  of  Esagila,  and 
in  particular  of  its  pavement  and  temple  tower.  Another  relic 
of  the  honour  he  delighted  to  render  Esagila  is  a  bit  of  the 
treasure  he  dedicated  at  the  shrine,  a  strip  of  lapis  lazuli  on 
which  is  depicted  the  god  Adad  brandishing  the  thunder¬ 
bolt. 

Shortly  after  his  accession,  Esarhaddon  sent  Ubaru  as  the 
new  governor  of  Babylon.  He  reports:  “I  entered  Babylon, 
the  Babylonians  received  me,  and  daily  they  bless  the  king: 
‘He  it  is  who  will  bring  back  the  captivity  and  the  booty  of 
Babylon.*  And  from  Sippar  to  the  region  of  the  Bitter  River 
the  chiefs  of  the  Chaldseans  bless  the  king:  ‘He  it  is  who  will 
make  Babylon  inhabited.*  All  the  lands  take  comfort  before 
the  face  of  the  king  my  lord.**  1 

The  sad  truth  was  that  all  the  peoples  and  lands  did  not 
rejoice.  So  far  from  the  Chaldseans  blessing  the  king  in  their 
homes  about  the  Persian  Gulf,  the  very  first  troubles  of  the 
reign,  before  even  the  rehabilitation  of  Babylon  could  begin, 
were  with  Nabu-zer-kitti-lishir,  son  of  Merodach  Baladan.  No 
long  time  after  the  battle  of  Halulina,  he  had  submitted  to 
Sennacherib,  had  been  presented  with  rich  clothes  and  a  gold 
armlet,  and  had  been  nominated  king  of  the  Sealands.  His 
accession  to  the  Assyrian  cause  may  have  had  an  important 
part  in  bringing  about  the  fall  of  Babylon.  The  same  year  in 
which  Babylon  was  captured,  the  Elamite  king  Humbanimena 
suffered  a  stroke  of  paralysis,  and  after  a  year  of  speechlessness 
he  was  succeeded  in  March  of  688  by  Humbanhaltash  I,  who 

'  1  H.  418. 


h 


Fig. 

The 


13G.  RUINS  OF  THE 
Temple  Tower  is  one  of 


TEMPLE  OF  EZIDA  AT  BORSIPPA. 
the  two  traditional  “Towers  of  Babel.” 


ESARHADDON 


351 


in  all  probability  was  the  Elamite  general  Sennacherib  claimed 
to  have  killed  in  the  battle  of  Halulina. 

When  Sennacherib  was  murdered,  so  Esarhaddon  informs 
us,  Nabu-zer-kitti-lishir  sent  no  embassy  to  express  grief, 
neither  did  he  indicate  his  joy  at  the  accession  of  the  legitimate 
ruler.  The  reason  for  this  was  that  he  had  recognised  the 
Irrigator,  the  title  assumed  by  Esarhaddon’s  rival  in  Ashur. 
He  informs  the  Irrigator,  “The  signs,  whether  of  heaven  or 
earth  or  underworld,  I  have  written  out  in  order,  I  have  caused 
them  to  be  said  before  Shamash.  In  sacrificial  wine,  in  waters 
of  cleansing,  in  anointing  oil,  I  have  boiled  those  birds  entire, 
I  have  caused  men  to  eat  them.  The  image  of  the  king  of 
Akkad, ”  this  is  Esarhaddon,  “has  brought  before  me  visions, 
it  spoke,  saying:  ‘Why  hast  thou  caused  a  restless  spirit  to 
dwell  in  the  royal  image? ’  A  second  time  it  spoke:  ‘Inform 
the  Irrigator  that  Salla  gave  Nabu-usalli  his  servant  for  this 
purposed  He  inquired  concerning  Ningal-iddina,  Shamash- 
ibni,  and  Naid  Marduk,  he  spoke  concerning  the  defection  of 
the  land.  He  said:  ‘Take  the  fortified  cities  in  order,  accursed 
is  that  one,  he  shall  not  stand  before  the  Irrigator d  Let  them 
inquire  of  Nabu-usalli,  his  servant,  he  will  declare  every¬ 
thing.”  1 

Ningal-iddina,  governor  of  Uruk,  declared  for  Esarhaddon 
and  Nabu-zer-kitti-lishir  promptly  besieged  him  in  the  Irri¬ 
gator’s  service.  Word  was  sent  to  Ningal-iddina,  “Fear  not, 
Esarhaddon  sits  on  his  throne,”  but  the  message  was  handed 
over  to  the  Chaldsean,  and  he  made  himself  still  stronger.2 
But  even  while  so  engaged,  he  was  sending  to  the  king  com¬ 
plaining  that  Abi-eriba,  of  the  royal  seed,  had  been  commis¬ 
sioned  to  speak  words  of  evil  against  him  in  the  palace,  and 
he  reports  certain  news  from  his  father’s  house.3  Esarhaddon 
did  not  receive  his  excuses,  levies  from  the  near-by  provinces 
surrounded  him,  and  flight  to  Elam  seemed  his  only  recourse. 
Unfortunately  for  his  hopes,  the  end  of  October  of  the  pre¬ 
ceding  year  had  seen  Humbanhaltash  succeeded  by  another  of 
the  same  name,  and,  strange  to  say,  for  the  moment  the  new 

2  H.  589.  3  H .  511. 


1  H.  223. 


352 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Humbanhaltash  was  pro- Assyrian.  Nabu-zer-kitti-lishir  was 
at  once  put  to  death  and  his  brother  Naid  Marduk  fled  from 
Elam. 

It  was  an  unexpected  reversal  of  the  normal  conditions  when 
Elam  could  kill  a  son  of  Merodach  Baladan;  it  was  a  still 
stranger  situation  when  Assyria  could  grant  another  son  the 
rule  of  the  Chaldsean  country.  A  letter  from  the  Sealanders 
was  largely  responsible  for  his  hospitable  reception  in  Assyria: 
“  There  is  no  sin  of  our  lord  before  the  king.  In  the  forest  and 
the  cold  of  the  day  he  prays  to  Shamash  and  Bel  for  the  life 
and  welfare  of  the  king  his  lord,  and  his  heart  is  perfect  with 
the  king  his  lord.  He  trusts  in  the  king  his  lord  and  he  has 
returned  to  his  allegiance  and  through  the  sceptre  of  the  king 
his  lord  he  holds  sway.  Thy  father  who  terrorised  all  the 
non-kings  and  bore  rule,  by  him  he  makes  his  affirmation.  In 
the  land  of  Akkad  and  in  all  lands  there  is  no  desire  for  any 
one  but  Naid  Marduk.  Behold,  the  king  does  not  give  an¬ 
swer.  Naid  Marduk  is  but  one  man;  his  men  are  a  hundred 
thousand.  Let  the  king  send  his  decree.  ” 1 

Not  alone  in  south  Babylonia  was  the  accession  of  Esarhad- 
don  not  greeted  with  joy.  When  the  restoration  of  Babylon 
was  undertaken,  he  found  the  lands  of  the  citizens  occupied  by 
the  Dakkuru  tribe,  which  had  come  to  consider  them  theirs 
by  prescription.  At  the  first  rumour  of  the  new  policy,  they 
sent  a  formal  protest  through  their  chief,  Shamash-ibni,  though 
careful  to  speak  of  themselves  as  “the  Babylonians,  thy  loving 
servants/’ 

Esarhaddon’s  reply  was  short  and  caustic:  “Word  of  the 
king  to  the  non-Babylonians.  I  am  at  peace.”  Then,  with 
intentional  omission  of  the  peace  greeting  to  the  recipients: 
“There  is  a  saying  current  in  men’s  mouths:  ‘ Potter’s  dog 
sneaked  into  oven,  potter  makes  hot  fire  within.’  Behold,  you 
who  are  no  such  thing  have  changed  yourselves  into  Baby¬ 
lonians,  and  words  which  are  no  words,  which  you  and  your 
lords  have  made  up,  have  you  presented  against  my  servants. 
There  is  another  saying  current:  ‘Lady  of  joy  at  judge’s  door, 

1  H.  958. 


ESARHADDON 


353 


slop-jar  for  judge’s  wife.’  The  tablet  of  windy  words  and  of 
howlings  which  you  have  written,  I  have  placed  in  its  seals 
and  return  to  you.”  1 

After  such  an  expression  of  ill  will,  there  was  nothing  left 
for  the  Dakkuru  but  revolt.  Shamash-ibni  was  made  prisoner 
and  again  Esarhaddon  vents  his  spite  in  the  stinging  words  he 
applies  to  the  unfortunate:  “A  destructive  scoundrel  who 
feared  not  the  renown  of  the  lord  of  lords.”  Esarhaddon  knew 
the  fear  of  Bel  and  Nabu,  therefore  the  fields  were  restored  to 
their  former  cultivators.  Nabu-ushallim,  a  “son”  of  that 
Balasu  who  had  been  their  chief  under  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  was 
appointed  to  succeed  Shamash-ibni. 

“During  the  disturbance  and  revolt  of  Akkad”  a  certain 
citizen  of  Borsippa  named  Mushezib  Marduk  had  been  de¬ 
prived  of  his  estate  on  the  Euphrates,  though  it  was  “father’s 
land,  bought  with  money,”  and  held  under  the  protection  of 
the  king.  The  governor  and  ruler  of  the  Chaldaeans  had 
granted  it  to  one  of  his  own  partisans.  Esarhaddon  promised 
immediate  restitution,  but  the  course  of  justice  was  as  slow  as 
it  is  to-day,  and  before  the  royal  seal  could  be  affixed  to  protect 
its  owner  against  later  claims  and  to  permit  its  transfer  by  in¬ 
heritance,  both  Esarhaddon  and  Mushezib  Marduk  had  passed 
away,  and  it  was  not  until  the  ninth  year  of  Shamash-shum- 
ukin  that  the  heir,  Adad-ibni,  could  bring  the  transaction  to 
completion.  Nabu-ushallim  deposes  under  oath  that  the  plot 
was  from  of  old  father’s  house,  that  it  was  bought  with  money, 
that  no  governor  or  ruler  had  rights  in  it.  Thereupon  the  title 
to  the  estate  was  recorded  in  due  form  on  the  boundary  stone, 
placed  under  the  protection  of  the  gods  who  were  symbolised 
by  the  signs  thereon,  and  the  story  preserved  for  future  gen¬ 
erations.2 

Shortly  after  his  appointment  Nabu-ushallim  wrote  the  king 
about  the  swamp  people.  In  the  days  of  Shamash-ibni,  half 
of  them  fled  to  Amukkanu  land  and  stirred  up  the  enemy 
against  Assyria.  Let  the  king  now  send  to  Kudur  of  the 
Amukkanu  that  they  bring  out  their  camp  and  make  them 

2  King,  Boundary  Stones,  70  ff. 


1  H.  403. 


354 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


dwell  where  the  king  desires.  So  long  as  they  dwell  with  the 
Amukkanu,  their  brethren  will  not  be  submissive  and  will  not 
do  the  king’s  task-work.  Kudur,  son  of  Shamash-ibni,  calls 
himself  the  man  whom  the  king  has  restored  to  life.  He  would 
perform  the  service  of  the  king,  may  he  not  die  like  a  dog  from 
want  and  lack  of  food.1 

Urta-ahi-iddina  was  in  Nippur  at  this  time,  and  the  king 
made  inquiry  of  him  concerning  the  artisans,  lesser  officials, 
and  fugitive  serfs  who  formerly  belonged  to  Shamash-ibni  and 
were  now  with  Nabu-ushallim.  The  Dakkuru  chief  flatly 
refused  to  surrender  them  unless  he  be  shown  the  king’s  sealed 
order,  and  then  only  into  the  hands  of  a  member  of  the ‘royal 
body-guard.  Nor  does  he  approve  the  presence  of  agents  of 
Nabu-ushallim,  who  have  come  with  much  money  in  their 
hands  and  desire  to  purchase  horses. 

He  has  also  a  report  on  Bel-iqisha,  the  son  of  Bunanu,  the 
Gambulu  chief,  who  had  been  implicated  in  the  war  with 
Nabu-zer-kitti-lishir.  Bel-iqisha  himself  complains  to  the 
king:  “From  the  time  when  first  the  king  seized  me,  what  was 
my  sin  against  the  king  that  the  king  should  write :  ‘  Thy  heart 
has  been  perverse.’  Where  is  my  sin?  Against  the  king  I 
have  not  revolted,  the  feet  of  the  king  my  lord  I  have  kissed. 
Now  all  my  powers  are  exhausted.  Bel,  Nabu,  Sarpanitum, 
thy  gods,  surely  know  whether  there  is  any  sin  of  mine  against 
the  king.  The  king  my  lord  has  imprisoned  me,  I  am  dying 
of  hunger.  By  thy  gods,  Bel  and  Nabu,  I  have  eaten  no  food 
for  nine  days.  As  to  the  messages  which  the  king  my  lord  has 
sent  since  I  was  imprisoned,  have  I  not  replied  thus  to  the  king 
my  lord :  ‘If  in  the  wooded  mountains  of  a  surety  I  have  gone, 
if  as  a  messenger  I  have  been  courageous,  judge  whether  there 
is  any  sin  before  the  king  my  lord.’  ”  2  This  is  very  different 
from  the  statement  of  the  annals  that  he  came  with  tribute 
of  his  own  accord.  But  the  annals  does  tell  the  truth  when  it 
adds  that  Esarhaddon  strengthened  his  stronghold  of  Shapi 
Bel,  made  confident  his  heart,  and  recognised  his  archers  as 
part  of  the  Assyrian  bowmen. 

For  Urta-ahi-iddina  continued  with  the  story  of  how  Bel- 
1  H.  258;  756.  2  H.  390;  cf.  541. 


ESARHADDON 


' 

*> 


iqisha  went  to  Babylon,  where  he  marries:  one  daughter  : ;»  3H- 
ahi-iddina,  to  Borsippa,  where  he  secured  a  son  oi  Nadirm  for 
another,  and  to  the  Dakkuru.  where  the  hand  o:  the  third  ~ae 
bestowed  upon  Zakir,  the  chief  shepherd  of  Xabti.  He  alee 
secured  from  Nabu-dini-amur  the  city  of  Bit  Hussaih  on  the 
Piti  canal  near  Kutu,  which  contributed  a  hundred  measures 
of  dates  and  a  similar  amount  of  grain,  though  it  was  royal 
property  belonging  to  the  province  of  Babylon,  and  neither  the 
father  nor  the  grandfather  of  Bel-iqisha  had  ever  en"  n on  its 


u-. 


possession.1 

Just  at  tliis  moment  Assyrian  officials  seemet 

•r 

than  Gambulu  chiefs,  and  the  king  took  Urta-ahi-id 
task  for  his  attitude.  A  verv  humble  letter  came  h 
with  heaped-up  salutations.  The  king  has  demanded  why  he 
had  not  sent  back  the  personal  troops  loaned  him  by  the  kina 
and  he  promises  so  to  do.  There  may  be  something  sinister 
in  the  last  statement,  that  Enlil-bani  has  arrived  as  king's  ser¬ 
vant  and  for  the  guard  of  Nippur,2  for  Urta-ahi-iddina  may 
be  identified  with  the  qadu  official  of  Nippur,  and  he.  we  know 
was  carried  off  to  Assyria  and  killed  before  the  first  full  war  o: 


Esarhaddon  was  ended. 

The  failure  of  Esarhaddon  in  his  bust  attempt  against  Egypt 

offered  an  opportunity  which  Ilumbanhaliash  was  no:  slow  to 

seize.  He  fell  upon  Sippar  and  made  a  great  killing  there  so 

that  the  ceremonial  procession  of  the  god  Shamash  could  not 

move  out  that  year.  Kudur,  the  Pakkuru  otbcial  who  was 

% 

responsible,  had  already  reported  that  while  he  was  in.  the 
enemy  land,  the  Puqudu  in  a  raid  had  destroyed  the  loyal 
Amukkanu,  slaying  the  men.  ravishing  the  women,  and  he  has 

heard  that  they  have  marched  against  baba,  the  guarvisir.au 

%  ^  ^ 

Thereupon  he  sent  troops  to  his  aid  and  the  captain  Nairn- 
shar-usur  seized  them  when  he  reached  the  Koval  Canal  "he 
king  should  know  that  Amukkanu  is  destroyed.  that  the 
Tiiqudu  dwell  in  their  land,  and  that  the  troops  yv'*th  him  b.ave 
not  been  ordered  out.  The  Kiiqiidu  are  the  aggressors  and 
“we  abhor  the  sin  of  the  land."  8 

After  the  capture  of  Sippar,  while  the  king  was  encamped 

1  //.  m  *//,  mr. 


.  .  -id. 


356 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


on  the  border  of  Egypt,  an  eclipse  took  place  in  July.  None 
of  his  soldiers  cared  for  the  welfare  of  Assyria;  right  and  left  it 
smote.  Now  his  messenger  is  with  him,  let  the  king  question 
him.  Kudur  has  performed  the  incantation  for  the  eclipse, 
and  sends  a  messenger  to  the  king  asking  for  many  more. 
Nabu-shum-lishir,  brother’s  son  of  Zakir,  the  magician  of  the 
bath-house,  has  cleansed  the  temple  “  Palace  of  the  Moun¬ 
tain,”  and  the  binding  and  loosing  for  the  governor,  Bel-etir. 
Has  not  the  king  ordered  him  in  the  second  year  to  come  to 
see  his  face  ?  Thus  Kudur  attempted  to  defend  himself  against 
responsibility  for  a  mutiny  of  the  soldiers  which  he  attributed 
to  the  malign  influence  of  an  eclipse.1 

The  qadu  of  Nippur,  perhaps  Shum-iddina,  the  son  of 
Gahul,  and  so  a  brother  of  the  late  king  Nergal-ushezib  (694- 
689),  has  the  age-long  excuse:  “The  king  knows  that  I  am  ex¬ 
ceedingly  ill;  if  I  were  not  ill,  had  I  not  been  ill,  I  would  have 
come  myself  to  greet  the  king.”  In  his  place  he  has  sent  his 
brother  Bel-usatu  and  ten  well-born  citizens  of  Nippur.  “The 
king  knows  that  all  lands  hate  us  because  of  Assyria,  and  we 
dare  not  set  our  feet  in  any  of  the  lands  where  we  might  go. 
They  would  kill  us,  for  they  say:  ‘Why  have  you  taken  the 
yoke  of  Assyria?’”  They  have  closed  the  city  gates  com¬ 
pletely,  they  go  not  forth,  for  the  watch  of  the  king  they  keep. 
The  messenger  and  the  chiefs  sent  by  the  king  have  seen 
everything,  let  them  make  report  to  the  king.  “Let  not  the 
king  surrender  us  to  the  hands  of  a  substitute.”  There  is  no 
spring-water  and  the  people  committed  to  his  care  are  dying 
of  thirst.  The  king’s  father  had  given  them  permission  to 
extend  the  Baniti  canal  to  Nippur,  and  had  promised  that  no 
prince  should  cut  them  off  from  it.  Let  the  king  send  to 
Ubaru,  governor  of  Babylon,  who  has  charge  of  the  canal. 
Otherwise,  all  the  lands  will  say:  “The  men  of  Nippur,  who 
have  taken  the  yoke  of  Assyria,  must  in  their  thirst  look  to 
the  skies  for  rain.”  2 

Probably  the  last  letter  sent  by  the  qadu  reports  that  when 
the  master  of  ceremonies  and  the  minor  officials  went  down  to 


1 H.  276. 


2  H.  327. 


ESA  RH  ADDON 


the  Chaldaeans,  the  brothers  of  the  Ziauaite  W  g 
to  go  to  their  aid,  but  he  refused,  fearing  to  viola: 
Ax  sort  of  Xabu-ahi-usur  has  entered  Nippur  he  ha 
upon  Sippar,  he  has  seized  the  nobles  of  Nippur, 
qadu  remonstrated  with  him.  he  mocked  iu  ha 


rr _ * 


and  cast  him  into  prison  in  the  sigh:  of  "  ~ ^  cu  rezr.e  "  ~ 
also  came  into  the  city  at  the  special  request  of  tire  men  of 
Nippur.  Let  the  king  order  an  investigation  of  the  care's 
case  and  force  the  son  of  X abu-ahi-iisur  to  return  to  Nippur 
as  much  as  he  carried  off.1 

Humbanhaltash  “died  in  has  palace  without  being  sick 
and  his  place  was  taken  by  his  brother,  the  pro- Assyrian 
Urtaku.  The  news  seemed  too  good  to  be  true,  each  Esarhad- 
don  cannily  took  the  precaution  of  inquiring  of  Shumash 
whether  Urtaku  was  to  be  trusted.  When  the  god  answered 
in  the  affirmative.  Esarhaddon  sent  a  letter  wishing  peace  for 
Lis  brother,  his  sons  and  his  daughters,  his  nobles  and  his 
land.  The  newly  found  brother  was  informed  that  Esarhad¬ 
don  had  accomplished  all  that  the  gods  had  ordered  him  A 
Eloquent  testimony  to  the  change  which  had  come  about  in 
international  relations  was  the  return  of  Ishtar  and  the  other 
gods  from  Elam.  But  neither  Shum-iddiica  nor  Kudu:  re¬ 
joiced  at  their  return.  Their  enemies.  Xabu-ushadkn  and  Bol- 
iqisha.  had  the  ear  of  the  king,  and  Ivudur  and  Sinmc-idiina 
were  brought  to  Assyria  for  punishment. 

Like  that  of  his  father,  the  reign  of  Esarhaddon  is  dominated 
by  his  Babylonian  policy,  l  ike  Ids  predecessors  he  took  the 
title  “King  of  Shumer  and  Akkad,"  but  never  “  King  of  Baby¬ 
lon."  Instead,  he  contented  himself  with  the  title  of  pro¬ 
tector "  of  the  city.  The  lists,  however,  coma:  him  as  full  kirn: 
of  Babvlon  throughout  his  reign,  and  at  Bab\  lorr  itself  busi 
ness  documents  were  dated  by  his  regnal  years  1:  was  little 
enough  recognition  of  the  good  done  bv  Esarhadolon  for  Bain 
Ion  and  of  harm  for  Assyria. 

*//.  32S.  *u  a>us 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS  AND  GREEK 
CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  A  PALACE 

No  small  space  in  the  royal  annals  is  devoted  to  the  wars 
on  the  northeast  frontier.  The  operations  seem  on  a  small 
scale,  the  individuals  mentioned  are  quite  unknown,  and  the 
casual  reader  might  well  pass  the  whole  series  by  in  the  belief 
that  here  is  onhT  another  example  of  Assyrian  frightfulness. 

The  official  optimism  of  the  annals  destined  to  posterity 
does  not  exceed  the  optimism  of  the  oracular  gods  and  god¬ 
desses.  Ishtar  asks  where  is  the  land  of  the  enemy;  since  the 
answer  expected  is  that  there  is  none,  the  conclusion  follows 
that  Esarhaddon  is  to  remain  in  Kalhu  and  in  Nineveh  as  the 
shepherd  of  his  people.  The  mighty  men  of  the  Elamites  and 
the  Mannai  will  be  restrained,  the  Akkadian,  the  father  of  sin, 
will  have  his  letter  known,  the  plan  of  Mugallu  of  Asia  Minor 
will  be  dissolved.  Who  is  the  man  who  has  no  friends,  the 
man  who  is  despised  ?  Let  him  take  courage  under  the  shadow 
of  Esarhaddon.1 

Ashur  was  equally  optimistic.  The  Cimmerians  shall  be 
given  into  his  hands  and  fire  shall  be  hurled  into  Elli,  for  Ashur 
has  given  Esarhaddon  the  four  world  quarters.  In  the  house 
where  he  shines  forth,  in  the  house  where  he  grew  to  maturity, 
he  shall  have  no  rival,  he  shall  glow  as  the  rising  of  the  sun- 
god.  The  men  of  Harhar  have  plotted  against  the  king,  but 
he  has  declared  “Unto  Ashur  I  shall  appeal,”  and  his  shame 
has  been  known.  From  within  the  gate  of  heaven  Ashur  will 
come  quickly,  he  will  hasten  and  make  fire  to  consume  them, 
and  blazing  stones  will  he  rain  upon  them.  His  foes  will  he 
cut  down,  the  river  will  be  filled  with  their  blood.  This  is  the 
greeting  rendered  in  the  presence  of  the  cult  statue,  let  it  be 
brought  into  the  king’s  presence  on  a  tablet.  Let  them  pour 

1  Langdon,  Tarnrnuz,  139. 

358 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS 


J  - 


let 


out  oil  and  sacrifice  lambs  and  burn  incense.  thei 
read  it  to  the  king.1 

Over  against  the  official  accounts,  we  may  place  a  iw 
source  of  information,  the  queries  addressed  to  the  stz>z:h 
Shamash  and  answered  through  the  inspection  of  the  liver  of 
the  sacrificial  sheep.  Intended  as  they  were  for  the  ear  of  the 
god  alone,  they  confess  the  hopes  and  fears,  and  especially  the 
latter,  felt  by  the  rulers.  If  we  cannot  with  much  assurance 
connect  them  with  the  events  narrated  in  the  annals,  so  much 
the  worse  for  the  formal  histone  Viewed  in  this  newer  and 

V 

clearer  light,  the  wars  on  the  northeast  frontier  cease  to  be 
mere  examples  of  Assyrian  aggression  and  appear  as  they  were 
in  truth,  a  desperate  struggle  to  hold  the  frontier  against  the 

foes  who  were  in  a  bare  half-centurv  to  break  through  and  de- 

%  '> — 

strov  the  very  name  of  Assvria.  There  is  deco  trastedv  in 
these  confidently^  phrased  tales  of  victory.2 

hlu ch  space  is  devoted  to  a  certain  Kashtaritu.  Though 
called  only  a  village  chief  of  Ivarkashshi.  this  Iranian  leader 
seems  to  have  been  the  moving  spirit  of  a  great  confederacy  of 
Cimmerians,  Mannai,  and  Modes,  who  were  threatening  the 
very  existence  of  Assvria.  “0  Shaniash.  mightv  lord."  cries 
Esarhaddon,  “that  which  I  inquire  of  thee,  do  thou  answer 
with  sure  promise.  From  this  day,  the  od  day  of  this  month 
of  May,  to  the  11th  day  of  the  month  of  August  of  this  year, 
for  these  hundred  days  and  nights,  the  determined  period  tor 
the  execution  of  the  seer’s  office,  in  this  determined  time,  shall 
Kashtaritu  with  his  troops,  shall  the  troops  of  the  Cimmerians, 
shall  the  troops  of  the  Medes,  shall  the  troops  of  the  Mannai. 
shall  any  enemy  whatsoever,  plan  or  consider,  whether  by 
assault,  whether  by  might,  whether  by  weapon,  war,  or  con¬ 
flict,  whether  by  breach,  whether  bv  the  battering  ram  or  the 
siege-engine,  whether  with  one  siege  engine  or  another  siege 
engine,  whether  by  hunger,  whether  by  oaths  contrary  to  the 
gods  and  goddesses,  whether  by  flattering  words  and.  an  agave 
ment,  whether  by  any  deceitful  message,  that  the  city  should 
‘Strong,  /M.,  11,  037  IT.;  Unugilon,  7\i minus,  131  rt 

2  Kmultxon,  Asst/r.  (n  lu  tr  an  t'ivn  Sonnnnjott,  IS03;  KUulnvr,  :,w 

Tezte,  1013;  rl*.  .hint  row,  luli<iion,  11.  171  tV. 


360 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


be  taken,  shall  Kishassu  be  taken,  into  the  midst  of  that  city 
of  Kishassu  shall  they  go,  that  city  of  Kishassu  shall  their 
hands  take,  to  their  hands  shall  the  property  be  measured  out  ? 
Thy  great  godhead  knows.  The  capture  of  that  city  of 
Kishassu  by  the  hands  of  any  enemy  whatsoever,  from  this 
day  to  the  day  appointed  by  me,  is  it  by  the  mandate,  is  it  by 
the  mouth  of  thy  great  godhead,  O  Shamash,  great  lord,  ap¬ 
pointed,  shall  they  see  it,  shall  they  see  it?  Grant  that  after 
the  time  fixed  by  me,  grant  that  against  him  their  hearts  shall 
plan  evil,  that  they  shall  make  revolt,  grant  that  they  shall 
inflict  upon  him  a  defeat  and  plunder  his  fields,  grant  that  the 
decision  of  this  day,  whether  it  is  for  good  or  whether  it  is  for 
evil,  by  a  destructive  rain  shall  not  be  destroyed,  grant  that 
something  unclean  or  uncleanness  shall  not  come  to  the  place 
of  the  liver  inspection,  grant  that  the  lamb  of  thy  godhead 
which  has  been  exposed  for  examination  shall  not  be  defec¬ 
tive  or  faulty,  grant  that  he  who  touches  the  head  of  the  lamb 
shall  not  be  clothed  with  unclean  sacrificial  garments,  shall 
have  eaten  anything  impure,  shall  have  changed  or  mistaken 
the  fixing  of  the  hand,  grant  that  in  the  mouth  of  the  seer’s 
son  the  incantation  has  not  been  hurried.”  Then  follows  the 
liver  omen  which  was  to  tell  whether  the  omen  of  the  exposed 
liver  was  favourable  or  the  reverse. 

In  the  same  laboured  manner  the  troubled  king  inquired 
about  many  matters.  Bartatua,  the  Scythian  king,  has  de¬ 
manded  the  daughter  of  Esarhaddon  to  wife.  Far  from  re¬ 
senting  this  suggested  marriage  with  the  barbarian,  the  only 
fear  is  that  the  sacrifice  may  be  in  vain.  Will  he  speak  with 
Esarhaddon  true  words  of  peace,  will  he  truly  say  the  “ peace” 
which  acknowledges  his  nominal  submission,  will  he  keep  his 
oath  to  Esarhaddon,  will  he  do  that  which  is  good  for  Esar¬ 
haddon?  A  second  inquiry  proves  a  successful  marriage,  for 
Bartatua  is  expected  to  march  against  Bit  Kapsi  and  Saparda 
in  the  Median  land,  the  enemies  of  Assyria. 

Kashtaritu  has  attempted  to  excite  Mamitiarshu,  the  Me¬ 
dian  village  chief.  Will  he  be  successful?  Esarhaddon  has 
despatched  a  messenger  to  Kashtaritu.  Will  he  be  killed  on 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS 


361 


the  way  by  the  Cimmerians  or  some  of  the  other  allies,  and  if 
he  is  fortunate  enough  to  reach  his  destination,  will  he  be  put 
to  death  there?  If  he  did  win  through,  he  made  no  impres¬ 
sion  on  the  barbarian,  for  the  next  tablet  indicates  that  an 
army  had  been  sent  against  him  by  the  Assyrians.  The  allies 
had  reached  Uesi,  once  the  much-contested  outlet  from  Haldia; 
now  Haldia  had  lost  it,  and  the  question  is  whether  it  will  fall 
into  enemy  hands.  Will  the  allies,  now  united  with  Dusanni, 
the  Sapardian,  capture  in  May  the  city  they  have  attacked? 
Uesi  fell,  and  the  question  is  next  whether  the  Scythian  hordes 
which  now  occupy  the  Mannai  provinces  and  have  crossed  the 
frontier  into  that  country,  will  accomplish  their  purpose  in 
July.  Will  they  emerge  from  the  pass  of  the  city  of  Hubushkia 
and  fall  upon  the  cities  of  Harrania  and  Anisus?  Will  they 
ravage  the  Assyrian  border  and  carry  off  much  spoil?  If  an 
ambassador  is  sent  to  Hubushkia,  will  the  Mannai  slay  him? 
Will  the  expedition  against  the  Mannai  be  successful?  Will 
the  general  enter  the  pass  of  the  city  of  Sandu  and  aid  the 
city  of  Kilinan  in  May?  Will  they  take  the  cities  of  Karibti 
and  Suba  in  Saparda  in  the  same  month?  The  city  of  Dur 
Bel,  the  fortress  of  Esarhaddon,  has  been  taken  by  the  Man¬ 
nai;  will  it  be  recovered  ?  Will  the  expedition  against  the  land 
of  Sirish  be  fortunate?  Will  the  Mannai  or  the  Rimai  fall 
upon  it  ?  Shall  the  general  named  upon  the  tablet  go  against 
the  land  of  Kukkuma,  the  cities  of  Udpani  and  Ramadani,  or 
will  the  Medes  and  the  Mannai  take  them?  Shall  the  com¬ 
mander-in-chief,  Sha  Nabu-shu,  go  against  Amul  and  will  he 
take  it  ?  What  of  Ahsheri,  who  has  united  with  the  Cimmeri¬ 
ans  ?  Will  the  city  of  Sharru-iqbi  be  taken  by  engines,  hunger, 
or  want,  through  fear  or  the  defeat  of  the  Assyrian  troops? 

In  the  case  of  Ahsheri,  we  need  not  regret  the  loss  of  the 
god’s  answer.  Esarhaddon  maintained  publicly  that  he 
crushed  the  Mannai  and  the  Scythians,  but  the  answer  of  his¬ 
tory  is  given  by  his  son  Ashur-bani-apal;  the  Mannai,  he  con¬ 
fesses,  took  it  from  his  father,  and  Ahsheri  continued  a  thorn 
in  the  flesh  in  his  own  reign. 

Assyrian  administration  was  not  quite  at  an  end,  for  we 


362 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


have  several  references  to  the  collection  of  “  gifts”  of  horses, 
but  there  is  ever  danger  from  the  confederates.  Officials  have 
gone  for  horses  into  Bit  Kari  of  Media;  will  trouble  arise  from 
the  Scythians?  Will  the  party  sent  for  horses  to  the  cities  of 
Antarpati,  Karzita,  and  Bit  Tad  be  a  success,  especially  as 
Eparna  must  be  taken  into  consideration  ?  Esarhaddon  claims 
in  his  annals  the  tribute  of  Shitirparna  and  Eparna,  lords  of 
the  mighty  cities  of  Patusharra,  on  the  edge  of  the  salt  desert, 
in  the  midst  of  the  distant  Medes,  on  the  border  of  Mount 
Bikni,  a  mountain  of  lapis  lazuli.  The  comparison  with  the 
famous  blue  stone  so  desired  in  all  antiquity  is  sufficient  to 
prove  its  identity  with  the  bluish,  snow-clad  Demavend,  which 
towers  over  the  present  Persian  capital  of  Teheran. 

Again  we  are  told  of  an  inroad  by  which  the  natives  were 
forced  to  take  to  the  waters  of  their  inland  sea.  Only  those 
who  were  open  of  knees  so  much  as  reached  the  mountain  top, 
and  they  were  ultimately  captured  like  birds.  The  nomads 
who  dwelt  far  away  in  their  tents  were  torn  out  by  the  roots 
like  a  flood,  those  who  had  entered  the  sea  as  a  fortress  and 
the  mountain  as  a  citadel  did  not  escape  the  snare.  The  abode 
of  the  man  of  the  mountain  was  changed  to  the  sea  and  of  the 
seaman  to  the  mountain.  From  the  midst  of  the  sea  the 
enemy  said:  “The  fox  is  before  the  face  of  Shamash,  whither 
shall  he  flee?77  Thus  they  testified  to  their  acquaintance  with 
the  ancient  classic  which  told  how  the  fox  attempted  to  defend 
himself  before  the  god  when  accused  of  theft.  The  literary 
style  is  excellent,  but  the  inquiries  to  this  same  Shamash  show 
the  king  fearfully  begging  to  know  whether  his  enemy  will 
attack  Bit  Hamban,  and  this  country  is  well  on  the  way  to 
Babylonia. 

Little  historical  imagination  is  required  to  see  behind  the 
official  inscriptions  with  the  aid  of  these  secret  inquiries  to  the 
god.  Details  of  dates,  cities,  individuals,  may  be  unimpor¬ 
tant;  what  is  of  supreme  importance  is  the  coming  in  of  bar¬ 
barians  of  our  own  Indo-European  speech.  To  us  of  the  north 
and  west  such  an  incoming  cannot  but  be  of  the  highest  inter¬ 
est,  even  though  we  admit  that  kinship  with  us  in  speech  need 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS 


363 


not  of  necessity  mean  kinship  in  blood.  Many  of  the  names 
of  places  and  persons  sound  strangely  familiar.  For  some 
only  slight  phonetic  changes  are  required  to  transfer  their  ele¬ 
ments  into  similar  meanings  in  our  present-day  speech.  Shi- 
tirparna  reminds  us  of  another  Chitrafarna  of  our  schoolboy 
days,  though  we  knew  him  by  the  Greek  corruption  of  Tissa- 
phernes,  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  younger  Cyrus.  Many  an¬ 
other  is  known  to  us  from  less-read  Greek  or  Roman  writings. 
Madai,  Gimirrai,  Ishguzai  play  a  large  part  in  the  pages  of 
the  Father  of  History  as  Medes,  Cimmerians,  and  Scythians; 
Antarpati  is  the  prototype  of  Atropatene,  the  classical  name 
of  northwest  Persia;  Patusharra  is  the  well-known  land  of 
Pateischories;  the  men  of  Saparda  are  the  Persian  tribe  of  the 
Sparda;  Bartatua  is  that  Protothyes,  father  of  the  Scyth  Ma- 
dyas,  who  overran  the  whole  of  the  Assyrian  Empire. 

Sargon  and  Sennacherib  had  gained  control  of  the  Cilician 
Gates.  By  the  opportune  alliance  of  the  rebel  Abdmelcart  of 
Sidon  with  Sanduarri  of  Kundi  and  Sisu,  cities  which  as  the 
classical  Cyinda  and  the  mediaeval  Sis  were  to  be  famous  as 
treasure-city  and  as  an  Armenian  political  capital  respectively,1 
access  was  gained  to  the  one  competing  pass  across  the  Taurus. 
At  the  end  of  this  road  lay  the  sacred  city  of  Comana.  The 
first  range  of  mountains  was  successfully  crossed,  and  the 
Assyrian  general  reached  the  province  of  Hubushna,  the  Ca- 
bissus  of  Roman  times,  and  but  a  short  distance  south  of  the 
sacred  city  with  its  accumulated  treasures. 

Here  they  chanced  upon  one  of  the  raiding  Cimmerians, 
whose  name  of  Teushpa  recalls  that  of  the  almost  contempo¬ 
rary  Teispes,  ancestor  of  Cyrus.  Ashur  promised  that  they 
would  be  delivered  into  Esarhaddon’s  hands  and  the  Assyrians 
claim  that  this  promise  was  fulfilled.  At  any  rate,  the  north¬ 
ward  progress  of  the  Assyrians  was  stopped  and  they  turned 
west  across  the  mountains  to  the  fertile  plain  where  was  the 
earlier  Cilicia  and  the  Duuna  land  about  the  great  city  of 
Tyana.  The  account  ends  at  this  point,  and  Esarhaddon  goes 

1  Strab.  xiv,  5,  10;  Diod.  xviii,  62;  xix,  56;  Plut.  Eumen.  13;  Suidas,  s.v.;  cf, 
Ramsay,  II istorical  Geography ,  385. 


364 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


out  of  his  way  to  declare  that  he  was  the  first  to  conquer  this 
territory,  although  we  know  that  it  had  been  forced  to  pay 
tribute  to  his  father  and  grandfather.  In  sober  truth,  he  was 
chronicling  the  failure  of  the  most  ambitious  attempt  to  sub¬ 
jugate  Asia  Minor. 

More  immediate  menace  was  felt  on  the  northern  border, 
but  the  danger  was  no  longer  from  Haldia.  Argishtish  II  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Rusash  about  the  same  time  that  Esar- 
haddon  became  king,  but  his  kingdom  was  sadly  shrunken. 
The  line  of  fortresses  from  Erzerum  to  Echmiazin  marked 
definite  retreat  of  the  frontier  in  the  Caucasus-Black  Sea 
region  under  Cimmerian  attacks.  The  Mannai  were  now 
more  aggressive  than  the  Haldians,  and  the  Urumia  country 
was  lost.  Early  in  the  reign  of  Sennacherib  the  direct  line 
between  the  Assyrian  and  Haldian  capitals  had  been  cut,  and 
in  the  inquiries  through  the  liver  omens  we  can  actually  see 
the  Iranian  confederates  winning  Uesi,  the  city  in  the  pass 
which  forms  the  most  difficult  portion  of  the  route. 

Farther  west,  where  the  first  Tiglath  Pileser  and  the  last 
Ashur-nasir-apal  made  their  most  advertised  conquests,  the 
native  Asianic  peoples  had  organised  a  state  to  which  they 
assigned  the  historic  name  of  Shupria,  which  had  not  enjoyed 
an  independent  existence  since  Shalmaneser  III,  though  a 
certain  Shuprian  played  some  part  in  the  Armenian  wars  of 
Sargon.  Quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  Esarhaddon  calls  its 
ruler  a  mere  bandit;  after  reading  the  following  letter  from 
him,  we  may  feel  inclined  to  excuse  the  Assyrian  king  for  his 
unkind  feelings: 

“Why  has  the  king  my  lord  sent  days  of  want  and  privation 
and  full  of  suffering?  When  thy  father  accepted  slanders  of 
this  sort,  which  are  not  fit  for  remembrance,  he  did  not  send. 
And  he  who  has  sinned,  front,  back,  right,  left,  above  and 
below,  the  king  of  the  gods,  the  exalted,  will  transfer  all  the 
dwellings  to  the  hands  of  the  man  who  fears  him.  As  for  the 
lapis  lazuli,  of  which  the  king  my  lord  wrote :  ‘  Let  them  bring 
lapis  lazuli/  the  king  my  lord  does  not  know  that  I  went  up 
after  lapis  lazuli,  and  as  I  was  bringing  the  lapis  lazuli  the 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS 


365 


land  revolted  from  me.  If  it  please  the  king  my  lord,  let  a 
considerable  force  come  to  secure  the  lapis  lazuli.  When  they 
come,  food  with  them  I  shall  not  eat,  water  with  them  I  shall 
not  drink,  with  them  I  shall  not  go,  before  thy  messenger  I 
shall  not  stand,  the  royal  peace  of  the  king  my  lord  I  shall  not 
ask.”  Not  to  ask  the  king’s  peace  was  flat  rebellion,  and  yet 
he  has  the  audacity  to  add :  “  Let  not  the  king  reckon  it  a  sin  !  ”  1 

Many  Assyrian  officials,  up  to  the  rank  of  governor,  were 
fleeing  the  sinking  Assyrian  ship  of  state  and  were  taking  refuge 
in  Shupria.  Decaying  Haldia  suffered  the  same  loss.  Esar- 
haddon  demanded  that  the  fugitives  be  surrendered  to  the 
nagir  he  should  send,  and  the  demand  was  twice  repeated,  but 
the  only  reply  was  an  attack  on  the  Assyrian  posts  along  the 
border. 

Preparations  for  war  followed.  If  we  believe  Esarhaddon, 
no  longer  did  the  king  of  Shupria  say,  “I  fear  not  the  great 
lordship  of  Esarhaddon,”  he  fled  in  terror  and  rent  his  royal 
dress,  like  a  slave  he  made  his  appearance,  among  slaves  he 
counted  himself.  With  prayer  and  beseeching  and  casting 
down  of  face,  he  ascended  the  wall  of  his  city.  He  wept  with 
piteous  outcry,  his  fingers  were  opened  in  prayer,  he  besought 
Esarhaddon’s  lordship;  because  of  the  aid  of  Ashur  and  the 
fame  of  the  king’s  bravery,  he  mourned  for  help.  Thus  he 
wrote  to  Esarhaddon:  “ Shupria,  the  land  which  has  sinned 
against  thee,  to  its  whole  extent  shall  it  obey  thee,  thy  gov¬ 
ernors  over  it  establish,  and  it  shall  give  thee  obeisance.  Trib¬ 
ute  and  tax,  yearly,  that  cannot  be  measured,  lay  upon  them. 
I  am  a  thief,  for  the  sin  I  have  sinned  fifty  times  will  I  repay; 
for  one  lost  fugitive  of  Assyria,  I  will  repay  a  hundredfold. 
Restore  me  to  life,  the  fame  of  Ashur  I  will  publish,  I  will 
praise  thy  might.  Whoever  sins  against  Ashur,  king  of  the 
gods,  to  the  command  of  Esarhaddon,  king  of  the  world,  his 
lord,  does  not  hearken,  a  fugitive  from  Assyria  to  his  lord  does 
not  return,  in  my  hands  may  I  see,  for  the  nobles  who  gave 
me  counsel  have  planned  with  me  rebellion  which  is  not  to 
my  advantage,  a  great  sin  against  Ashur  have  I  sinned,  to  the 

1 H.  1240. 


366 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


command  of  the  king  have  I  not  hearkened.  The  sons  of 
Ashur,  thy  servants,  have  I  not  returned,  that  which  was  for 
my  own  good  have  I  not  done.  The  oath  of  the  great  gods 
which  I  have  transgressed,  the  command  of  thy  royalty,  which 
I  have  despised,  has  bested  me.  May  the  wrath  of  thy  heart 
be  appeased,  may  grace  be  granted  me,  loose  my  sin.” 

Esarhaddon  replied:  “Hast  thou  ever  heard  the  word  of  a 
mighty  king  a  second  time?  Yet  have  I,  who  am  a  very 
mighty  king,  sent  to  thee  a  third  time  and  thou  hast  not 
hearkened  to  the  word  of  my  lips.  The  wrath  of  my  heart 
hast  thou  not  feared,  and  before  my  embassy  hast  thou  not 
abased  thy  pride.  War  and  battle  hast  thou  raised  against 
me,  and  the  mighty  weapons  of  Ashur  hast  thou  destroyed  in 
their  abiding-place.”  So  Esarhaddon  heard  not  his  prayer, 
received  not  his  recantation,  accepted  not  his  petition,  turned 
not  his  neck,  his  liver  was  not  reconciled,  the  wrath  of  his 
heart  was  not  appeased,  grace  he  did  not  grant  him,  he  did  not 
say:  “It  is  enough.” 

Uppume,  the  capital  of  Shupria,  was  situated  on  a  mighty 
mountain,  like  a  cloud.  The  Assyrians  with  difficulty  and 
with  pain  built  a  great  structure  by  piling  up  earth  and  stone 
and  set  it  against  the  wall  of  the  city.  While  Esarhaddon  was 
engaged  in  marching  about  that  region  victoriously,  on  the 
21st  of  December,  a  day  which  was  not  favourable  for  work, 
the  children  of  the  ashakku  demons  set  fire  to  the  mound  by 
night.  By  the  command  of  the  king  of  the  gods,  Marduk, 
the  north  wind  blew,  the  good  lord  of  the  gods  took  his  posi¬ 
tion,  he  turned  the  tongue  of  the  devouring  flame  against 
Uppume,  so  that  it  could  not  seize  the  mound  but  burned  the 
city  wall,  wffiich  went  up  in  smoke.  The  relieving  force  was 
put  to  rout  and  its  members  were  hung  around  the  city. 

An  image  of  the  Shuprian  king  was  therefore  made,  clothed 
with  the  dress  of  a  suppliant,  and  fetters  of  iron  were  placed 
upon  it.  Products  of  stone,  the  work  of  his  stone-mason,  sil¬ 
ver  and  red  gold,  he  cut  off  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  his  sons, 
Sheris  and  Kengi  Teshub.  To  obtain  grace  and  safety  for  his 
life,  they  brought  it  to  the  presence  of  the  Assyrian  king  and 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMEN'S 


367 


begged  him  to  lay  the  blame  for  ruin  which  could  no:  be  told 
on  the  body  of  the  ashakku  demons.  Esarhaddon  would  hear 
nothing  of  such  excuses.  In  vain  did  they  oner  sacrifices  and 
pour  out  libations  to  the  gods.  “  The  word  of  the  god  mik  not 
be  twice  repeated,  the  days  are  complete,  thy  hour  has  come, 
thy  time  is  near,  from  the  god's  mouth  has  gone  forth  the  de¬ 
struction  of  thy  land,  through  his  unchanging  order  has  been 
spoken  the  captivity  of  thy  men." 

His  mighty  booty  was  brought  to  the  presence  of  Esarhad¬ 
don  and  dedicated  to  his  gods.  Charioteers,  body-guards, 
artisans,  cavalry,  officials  of  various  varieties,  axe-men.  mes¬ 
sengers,  scouts,  gardeners,  are  some  of  the  groups  which  were 
recovered  and  added  to  the  mighty  forces  of  Ashur;  the  land 
of  Assyria,  like  quivers,  he  filled  throughout  its  whole  extent. 
The  remnant  were  divided  like  sheep  among  the  nobles  who 
served  in  the  palaces;  in  the  distribution  the  city  of  Ashur 
is  conspicuous  for  its  absence.  The  fugitives  who  had  aban¬ 
doned  their  lord  and  had  escaped  to  Shupria  were  deprived  of 
nose,  eyes,  and  ears.  There  were  likewise  men  who  had  fled 
from  Haldia;  Rusash,  the  Haldian  king,  had  demanded  their 
extradition  but  had  not  obtained  it.  Esarhaddon  ordered  an 
inquiry,  and  not  a  single  fugitive  was  retained:  they  were  all 
sent  home  to  receive  their  punishment  at  the  hands  of  their 
lord.  The  pressure  of  the  confederated  tribes,  their  own 
mutual  decline,  had  compelled  friendship  between  the  two 
great  powers  of  western  Asia. 

By  order  of  the  gods,  the  metropolis  Cppume  was  rebuilt 
and  the  other  towns  had  their  names  changed  to  such  high- 
sounding  sentences  as  “  Ashur  has  brought  back  his  land.' 
“Who  is  equal  to  Ashur?"  “The  word  of  Ashur  wavers  not," 
“  The  word  of  the  king  wavers  not."  “  Trample  those  who  bow 
not  down,"  “  He  who  sees  shall  fear,"  “  Destroying  the  enemy." 
“Alay  its  conqueror  grow  old,"  “  He  who  took  it  shall  be  estab¬ 
lished,"  4 ‘May  he  grow  old  who  has  pacified  the  heart  ot 
Ashur,"  “Wall  of  Esarhaddon,"  “No  enemy  shall  enter.  “It 
thou  fearest  Cod,  thou  sha.lt  possess  thy  land  in  peace, 
“Ashur  hurls  down  mv  foe."  “Ashur  has  increased  its  yoke.' 


368 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


In  these  cities  were  settled  men  of  the  upper  and  lower  seas, 
for  the  second  time  that  land  was  divided  and  two  governors 
assigned.  As  for  the  casualties,  Esarhaddon  announces  that 
they  were  one  charioteer,  two  horsemen,  and  three  sappers; 
he  is  simply  quoting  the  inscription  of  his  grandfather.1 

The  great  attack  on  Uppume  was  in  December  of  673,  but 
it  was  not  until  the  end  of  672  that  its  booty  reached  Uruk, 
where  the  king  had  taken  up  his  residence.  Just  before  the 
close  of  the  reign  comes  an  illuminating  letter  from  Ashur-ukin. 
The  king  has  written  him  in  regard  to  the  guards  stationed 
above  Urartu,  the  Mannai,  the  Medes,  and  Hubushkia,  and 
once  more  we  note  how  the  Mannai  and  the  Medes  are  directly 
athwart  the  main  line  of  communication  between  Assyria  and 
Haldia.  He  is  to  place  between  their  eyes  the  necessity  of 
watching  and  of  turning  their  ears  to  the  fugitives  round  about 
them.  If  a  fugitive  from  these  countries  should  flee  to  them, 
let  him  be  sent  to  the  crown  prince.  Let  the  scribe  for  the 
Mannai  write  a  sealed  letter.  Ahu-dur-enshi,  the  captain 
attached  to  the  crown  prince,  may  they  quickly  send  with 
soldiers.  Just  now  two  fugitives  have  fled  from  the  Mannai, 
one  an  officer,  and  one  bearded;  he  will  bring  them,  for  in  their 
mouth  is  the  desired  information.2 

At  the  beginning  of  his  reign  Esarhaddon  took  up  his  resi¬ 
dence  in  Nineveh  and  developed  a  new  suburb,  the  Kar  Ashur- 
ahi-iddina,  a  large  piece  of  land  cut  off  from  the  field  and  used 
as  a  building  site.  Work  had  already  been  done  there  by 
Sennacherib,  but  the  completion  of  the  armoury  was  to  the 
credit  of  his  son.  Captives  tore  down  the  smaller  building, 
and  in  its  place  Esarhaddon  erected  a  great  limestone  terrace. 
For  the  material  needed  in  the  construction  of  the  building 
which  crowned  it,  he  turned  to  the  seacoast  and  the  midst  of 
the  sea.  The  contributors  are  mentioned  by  name,  and  a 
most  impressive  list  it  is.  From  Phoenicia  came  Baal  of  Tyre 
and  Manasseh  of  Judah,  Chemosh-gaber  of  Edom,  Musuri, 
“the  Egyptian/’  of  Moab,  Sil  Bel  of  Ascalon,  Achish  of  Ekron, 
Melechasaph  of  Byblus,  Mattanbaal  of  Arvad,  Abibaal  of 

1  Winckler,  Forsch.,  II,  27  ff.  2  H.  434. 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS 


369 


Samsimuruna,  Pudiel  of  the  house  of  Ammon,  Ahimelech  of 
Ashdod — the  only  kings,  be  it  noted,  on  the  whole  Syrian  coast 
who  still  retained  the  shadow  of  independence.  They  pre¬ 
sented  great  beams,  tall  columns,  planks  of  cedar  and  cypress 
from  the  Sirara  and  Lebanon  mountains,  female  bulls,  slabs 
of  many  kinds  of  rare  stones,  including  breccia. 

On  quite  a  different  footing  as  regards  their  political  status 
and  of  yet  greater  interest  to  the  historian  is  the  precious  list 
of  Greek  rulers  from  Cyprus:  Ekishtura  of  Edial,  Pilagura  of 
Kitrusi,  Kisu  of  Sillua,  Ituandar  of  Pappa,  Eresu  of  Sillu, 
Damasu  of  Kuri,  Atmezu  of  Tamesu,  Damusi  of  Qartihadasti, 
Unusagusu  of  Lidir,  Bunusu  of  Nurenu.  The  process  of  Hel- 
lenisation  is  virtually  complete,  for  even  the  ruler  of  the  Cyp¬ 
riote  Carthage  bears  the  same  name  as  he  of  Curium. 

The  Greek  names  fall  into  two  distinct  classes.  Peculiarly 
Cypriote  are  Onesagaras  of  Ledra  and  Eteandrus  of  Paphus, 
and  of  the  second  we  actually  possess  armlets  said  to  have 
been  found  at  Curium,  where  in  Cypriote  script  he  is  called 
Etevandoro  of  Papo.  Pythagorus  of  Chytri  likewise  bears  a 
typically  Cypriote  name  and  recalls  the  great  Philosopher  who 
was  almost  his  contemporary.  Distinctly  Achaean  and  of  the 
older  type  is  the  king  of  Idalium,  iEgistheus,  like  in  name  to 
the  knave  who  treacherously  slew  Agamemnon,  lord  of  Argos; 
Cisus  of  Salamis,  whose  name  is  that  of  another  Argive  prince; 
Hereus  of  Soli,  who  reminds  us  that  the  greatest  of  all  the 
shrines  in  the  Argive  plain  was  that  of  Hera;  and  Admetus  of 
Tamassus,  who  at  once  brings  to  mind  the  husband  of  the 
devoted  Alcestis.  Only  Damasus  of  Curium  and  Pytheas  of 
Nure  cannot  be  located  in  one  of  these  groups. 

That  these  kings  sent  tribute  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be  believed.  They  sent  gifts  to 
the  Assyrian  king;  in  return  they  secured  valuable  commercial 
concessions,  and  the  result  is  to  be  seen  in  the  sudden  burst  of 
Assyrianisation  which  marks  the  art  of  the  island.  But  seven 
Greek  monarchs  sent  their  gifts  to  Sargon;  ten  good  Greeks 
appear  as  friends  of  Esarhaddon.  The  chief  cities  of  Cyprus 
were  now  Greek,  though  in  one  case  the  change  had  come  so 


370 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


late  that  the  Phoenician  name  of  Carthage  was  still  in  com¬ 
mon  use.  The  Greek  was  coming  into  his  own. 

Female  bulls  of  shining  bronze  looked  to  both  sides  of  the 
armoury,  before  and  behind;  the  entrance  was  adorned  with 
friezes  of  basalt  and  lapis  lazuli.  By  the  side  of  the  building 
an  Amanus  park  was  laid  out  and  canals  brought  water  for  the 
horses.  In  673  the  official  completion  was  celebrated  by  a 
great  feast  in  which  all  the  high  dignitaries  participated.  The 
bulls  were  still  incomplete,  the  alabaster  slabs  were  in  similar 
shape,  when  Esarhaddon  tired  of  his  plan  and  construction 
ceased.  The  armoury  fell  into  ruin,  protected  only  by  the  fancy 
of  a  later  generation  that  saw  in  its  heaps  the  tomb  of  Jonah, 
buried  on  the  spot  where  he  had  successfully  preached  repen¬ 
tance  to  the  Ninevites. 

Ashur  had  a  new  home  and  the  near-by  New  Year’s  House 
was  completed.  The  great  northern  wall  was  pushed  out  with 
a  splendid  limestone  facing,  with  an  entrance  and  with  battle¬ 
ments.  On  the  space  secured  an  addition  to  the  palace  was 
prepared.  Arbela  was  rewarded  for  her  many  favourable  ora¬ 
cles  by  new  constructions,  and  in  Tarbisu  he  made  an  abode 
for  the  son  of  his  heart,  Ashur-bani-apal,  where  Akkullanu 
made  libations  for  the  king  at  evening.1 

Esarhaddon’s  love  was  transferred  in  his  later  years  to 
Kalhu.  The  earlier  Tabiltu  canal,  which  Ashur-nasir-apal  had 
made  to  carry  water  from  the  Zab  River  to  the  capital,  had 
become  filled  with  debris  and  was  no  longer  large  enough  to 
meet  the  new  demands;  the  entrance  restored  by  Esarhaddon 
still  may  be  seen.  If  we  have  little  record  of  the  building,  we 
have  a  fair  number  of  letters  and  no  small  remains.  Arad 
Nabu,  for  example,  writes  in  to  his  master  to  state  that  the 
gold  which  arrived  during  the  month  of  October  has  been 
inspected  with  the  aid  of  the  abarakku  and  the  palace  scribe; 
there  are  three  talents  of  refined  gold  and  four  of  unrefined  in 
the  palace,  which  have  been  deposited  and  sealed  by  the  chief 
of  the  metal-workers.  The  gold  for  the  statues  of  the  kings 
and  of  the  king’s  mother  has  not  been  given;  let  the  king  order 

lH.  47;  628. 


Fig.  137.  “TOMB  OF  THE  PROPHET  JONAH,”  COVERING  THE  ARMOURY 
BUILT  BY  SENNACHERIB  AND  ESARHADDON  AT  NINEVEH. 


Fig.  138.  “NINEVEH  SHALL  BECOME 
Ploughed  land  where  once  were  the  houses  of  Nineveh 


A  WASTE.” 

City  walls  in  distance. 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS 


371 


the  abarakku  and  the  palace  scribe  to  open  the  gold.  If  the 
beginning  of  the  month  is  favourable,  let  them  give  it  to  the 
skilled  workmen  that  they  may  execute  their  work.1 

The  new  palace  was  erected  in  the  southwest  comer  o:  the 
city  enclosure  and  faced  north.  From  the  platform  one  passed 
through  winged  bulls  into  a  great  court,  two  hundred  arid 
eighty  by  one  hundred  feet  in  size,  and  surrounded  on  three 
sides  by  buildings.  From  this  one  passed  in  turn  through 
other  bulls  into  the  largest  single  room  ever  attempted  by 
Assyrian  architects,  sixty-two  feet  wide  and  no  less  than  one 
hundred  and  sixty-five  feet  long.  The  proportions  were  im¬ 
posing,  and  the  result  was  over  ten  thousand  feet  of  door 
space,  but  the  plan  failed  because  the  architect  was  unable  to 
construct  a  roof  to  cover  the  hall.  He  was  therefore  forced  to 
run  through  the  centre  three  piers  of  irregular  shape  and  vary¬ 
ing  length,  thereby  blurring  the  original  plan  and  making  a 
series  of  smaller  rooms. 

Letters  show  the  transfer  to  Kalhu  and  the  various  cere¬ 
monies  which  crowned  the  work.  Xabu-shum-iddina,  over¬ 
seer  of  Nabu,  reports  to  the  crown  prince  that  the  couch  of 
Xabu  is  to  be  prepared  in  Kalhu  on  the  3d  of  May.  Xabu 
will  enter  into  the  couch  house  and  the  next  day  he  will  return. 
Since,  as  the  crown  prince  knows,  he  is  the  overseer  of  Xabu’s 
house,  he  will  go  to  Kalhu.  The  god  is  to  proceed  first  to  the 
palace  enclosure  and  then  to  the  park,  where  sacrifices  are  to 
be  slain.  The  charioteer  of  the  gods  will  come  from  the  divine 
stables  and  will  take  the  divinity  in  procession  and  then  bring 
him  back.  He  will  advance  in  a  stately  manner.  Of  the  peo¬ 
ple  who  accompany  him,  each  will  oiler  his  sacrifice,  whatever 
it  may  be.  Whoever  offers  a  qa  of  food  may  eat  in  Xabu’s 
house.2 

Arad  Nabu  likewise  reports  that  on  the  4th  of  May  Xabu 
and  Tashmetum  entered  the  bedchamber.  He  has  given 
orders  that  the  offerings  of  Asluir-bani-apal.  the  crown  prince; 
of  Shamash-slmm-ukin,  crown  prince  of  Rabylon;  of  the  lady 
Sherua-cterat,  of  Ashur-miikiu-palea,  and  of  Shar-shame- 

1  //.  114.  6V 


372 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


irsiti-ballitsu  should  be  sacrificed  before  the  divine  pair  in  the 
bedchamber.  He  closes  with  the  comforting  assurance  that 
they  shall  cause  the  king’s  sons  to  live  a  hundred  years,  shall 
make  their  sons  and  grandsons  attain  old  age,  and  the  king 
shall  behold  it  all.1 

Nergal-sharrani  reports  on  the  same  happenings:  To-morrow, 
the  4th,  at  evening,  Nabu  and  Tashmetum  are  to  enter  the 
bedchamber.  Let  them  eat  food  from  the  king  on  the  5th. 
The  temple  overseer  shall  lie  down  and  they  shall  bring  into 
the  temple  a  lion’s  head  and  a  torch.  From  the  5th  to  the 
10th  the  gods  shall  remain  in  their  bedchamber  and  the  over¬ 
seer  shall  do  likewise.  On  the  11th  Nabu  shall  set  out,  his 
feet  he  shall  loosen,  to  his  park  he  shall  go,  in  his  abode  he 
shall  then  abide,  the  king  he  will  bless.2 

Cummin  has  been  seen  in  the  court  which  adjoins  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  Nabu  and  fungus  has  appeared  on  the  walls  of  the 
adjacent  cribs.  Incantations  against  them  have  been  pre¬ 
pared,  and  the  regular  ceremonies  are  being  carried  on. 
Adad-shum-usur  will  do  this  on  the  morrow,  let  him  do  these 
extra  ones  also.  As  to  what  the  queen  mother,  his  lord,  has 
made  inquiry  concerning  the  material  required  for  the  cere¬ 
monies,  there  is  to  be  a  mixture  of  good  oil,  water,  honey,  good 
spices,  myrrh,  hemp.  One  ox  and  two  large  lambs  are  to  be 
sacrificed.  Ninqai,  servant  of  the  queen  mother,  is  not  strong 
enough  to  carry  out  the  ceremonies,  she  should  not  enter. 
Let  the  treasury  be  opened  by  the  order  of  the  queen  mother, 
'  his  lord,  that  the  ceremonies  may  be  performed.  It  is  a  month 
since  he  has  been  sick  and  the  thorn  has  pricked  him.  From 
Dilbat  is  his  sickness,  through  her  good-will  there  is  help,  yet 
without  the  king  he  can  do  nothing.  Let  the  king  grant  him 
escape  from  his  illness.3 

Inquiry  has  been  made  of  Ishtar-shum-eresh  about  the 
images  of  the  kings  in  Harurrum.  They  should  be  ready  in 
March  and  the  king  wishes  information  as  to  when  they  can 
be  brought  in  and  where  they  shall  stand.  Ishtar-shum-eresh 
will  place  them  the  very  day  they  are  brought  in.  If  it  please 
1  H.  113.  2  H.  366.  3  H  367  f  .  203. 


Fig.  139.  ALABASTER  MODEL  OF  SPHINX.  (Esarhaddon.) 


Fig.  140.  HUMAN-HEADED  BULL.  (SARGON.) 

(Louvre.) 


SECRETS  OF  THE  LIVER  OMENS 


373 


the  king,  let  the  royal  statues  be  placed  right  and  left  before 
the  god,  let  the  statues  of  the  king’s  sons  be  placed  before  Sin. 
Then  will  Sin,  the  lord  of  the  crown,  monthly,  without  cessa¬ 
tion,  in  their  rising  and  their  setting,  be  at  the  side  of  the 
king  and  will  not  take  from  him  distant  days,  stability  of 
throne,  or  gift  of  strength.1 

The  high  dignitaries  of  Nineveh  were  forced  to  accompany 
the  king  to  the  “New  House,”  as  it  was  henceforth  to  be 
called.  One  of  them  writes  from  Nineveh:  “I  saw  the  inhabi¬ 
tants  in  Nineveh,  they  are  all  fools,  none  of  the  old  families  of 
Nineveh  are  any  longer  in  Nineveh,  those  who  stood  before 
the  king  thy  father  are  all  in  Kalhu.”  2 

We  cannot  learn  much  from  the  ruins  as  to  the  art  of  the 
period.  Only  the  hastily  made  bulls  and  lions  of  rough  lime¬ 
stone  represent  genuine  Assyrian  art.  The  beautiful  crouch¬ 
ing  sphinxes  which  supported  the  pillars  are  undoubtedly  to 
be  attributed  to  Egyptian  influence  and  to  this  is  due  the 
delicate  alabaster  models  from  which  they  were  enlarged.  For 
the  panelling  of  the  walls  Esarhaddon  did  not  trouble  himself 
to  excavate  new  slabs;  he  went  to  the  ruined  palaces  of  Ashur- 
nasir-apal  II  and  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  nor  did  he  spare  those  of 
his  grandfather  Sargon.  Their  beautifully  carved  reliefs  he 
hacked  off,  sawed  in  two,  or  turned  to  the  wall.  He  intended 
to  carve  in  their  place  his  sculptures,  accompanied  by  the 
story  of  his  own  expeditions,  but  he  never  enjoyed  the  oppor¬ 
tunity.  The  walls  were  still  unadorned,  the  annals  which 
were  to  cover  them  had  been  barely  written  down  on  tablets, 
the  errors  of  the  scribe  were  still  uncorrected.  Huge  piles  of 
slabs  pillaged  from  earlier  palaces  were  heaped  up  in  the  courts 
or  in  the  great  hall  itself,  awaiting  the  order  to  deface  them. 
The  order  never  came,  for  Esarhaddon  was  called  away  and 
never  returned  alive. 


1 H.  36. 


2H.  1103. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 


EGYPT  AT  LAST ! 

To  an  observant  bystander  it  must  have  been  obvious  that 
the  great  danger  to  the  future  was  to  be  found  on  the  eastern 
frontier,  where  the  resources  of  the  empire  were  being  drained 
in  the  effort  to  hold  back  the  waves  of  barbarians  dashing 
against  its  borders.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  why  this  was 
the  moment  chosen  by  Esarhaddon  for  the  wildest  of  adven¬ 
tures,  one  which  did  for  the  instant  bring  much  glory  to  Assyria 
but  contributed  no  real  strength,  which  rather  hastened  the 
inevitable  day  of  reckoning. 

Assyrian  kings  had  long  looked  with  desire  upon  Egypt,  so 
rich  and  seemingly  so  defenceless.  Tiglath  Pileser  III  had 
reached  the  outermost  limits,  Sargon  and  Sennacherib  had 
each  defeated  Egyptian  rulers,  but  the  boundary  of  the  desert 
had  never  been  crossed,  and  Sennacherib  had  wisely  made  his 
peace  with  the  Ethiopian  rulers  of  the  Nile  valley,  and  Syria 
had  in  consequence  continued  peacefully  Assyrian. 

Some  time  after  the  battle  of  Eltekeh,  Shabataka  (700-688) 
of  Egypt  was  deposed  by  his  cousin  Taharka  (688-663).  The 
troubles  at  Esarhaddon’s  accession  led  to  the  revolt  of  Abdmel- 
cart  of  Sidon;  his  only  mentioned  ally  is  Sanduarri  of  the 
Taurus  region,  but  Egypt  was  doubtless  in  the  background. 
His  home  on  the  reef  where  had  been  the  earliest  settlement 
of  the  Sidonians,  and  where  are  yet  to  be  seen  the  remains  of 
early  buildings  and  of  an  aqueduct,  fell  an  easy  prey  in  677,  its 
dwellings  were  overthrown,  its  wall  cast  into  the  waters,  and 
when  Abdmelcart  fled  into  the  midst  of  the  sea,  he  was  drawn 
out  like  a  fish. 

The  kings  of  the  Hittite  land  and  of  the  seashore  had  been 
gathered  together  to  take  part  in  the  siege;  they  witnessed  the 
formal  transfer  of  the  city  to  the  mainland  and  its  rechristen- 
ing  as  Kar  Ashur-ahi-iddina,  “ Esarhaddon’s  Fort,”  which  was 

374 


EGYPT  AT  LAbT! 


375 


destined  to  be  the  seat  of  the  governor.  Colonists  from  moun¬ 
tain  and  seashore  on  the  eastern  bonier  of  the  empire  were 
settled  with  an  increased  tribute. 

Among  those  present  on  this  momentous  occasion  was  Baa: 
of  Tyre,  Esarhaddon  tells  us  that  in  return  for  an  increased 
tribute,  he  granted  the  cities  of  ilarib  and  Zarephath.  but  a 
chance  document  from  the  Assyrian  archives  gives  a  slightly 
different,  aspect  to  the  matter.  This  is  the  actual  treaty  which 
was  struck  between  Esarhaddon  and  the  more  than  half  inie- 
rendent  ruler  of  the  island  citv.  To  be  sure,  it  was  somewhat 

•A.  % 

cue-sided.  for  Esarhaddon  often  speaks  in  the  nrst  person  and 
enforces  the  penalties:  notwithstanding,  there  is  a  very  sub¬ 
stantial  quid  pro  quo.  If  Esarhaddon  is  able  to  insist  that 
he  may  appoint  a  resident  to  watch  over  the  Tyrian  territory. 

that  Baal  is  to  obev  anv  message  sent  bv  the  kinr  that  he  is 

«>  »  - —  •  * — 

to  appear  when  summoned  by  the  resident,  the  commercial 
clauses  are  those  of  equals. 

If  the  ships  of  Baal  or  the  men  of  Arvad  are  shipwrecked  in 

Palestine,  neither  men  nor  Dropertv  are  to  be  seined,  but  thev 

are  to  be  sped  safely  on  their  way.  and  the  same  is  to  hold 

true  with  ships  belonging  to  Assyrian  subjects.  The  routes 

open  to  the  trade  of  Baal  are  carefullv  listed.  He  mav  enter 

Acco  and  Dor.  in  the  land  of  Palestine,  the  seashore  cities 

which  are  directlv  under  Assvrian  rule.  Bvblus.  Mount  Leb- 

%  *  * 

anon,  and  all  the  cities  thereof:  in  short,  ail  the  cities  in  the 
possession  of  Esarhaddon.  king  of  Assyria.  In  return  Esar¬ 
haddon  may  enter  the  cities,  villages,  and  strongholds  of  Baal, 
including  the  ruined  cities  which  the  Assyrian  king  had  handed 
over  to  Baal  as  his  share  of  the  Sidonian  booty.  For  this 
favoured  position  Baal  is  to  pay  no  more  than  the  tribute  which 
had  been  agreed  upon  with  Shalmaneser,  son  of  Tiglath  Pileser. 

With  the  sanctions  to  the  treaty,  the  Assyrian  again  appears 
as  lord  enforcing  regulations  upon  his  vassal.  The  Tyrian 
king  is  to  be  bound  to  his  duty  by  the  great  oath  of  the  gods. 
Gala  is  not  to  be  to  him  a  healing  goddess,  but  is  to  instil  bit¬ 
ter  sickness  into  his  body*  The  seven  might v  cods  are  to 
strike  him  down  with  weapons.  The  Bethels  and  Aka  aba  are 


376 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


to  leave  him  in  the  claws  of  a  fierce  lion.  The  great  gods  of 
heaven  and  earth,  the  gods  of  Assyria  and  Akkad,  as  well  as 
the  gods  of  Ebir-nari,  the  country  west  of  the  Euphrates,1  are 
to  send  him  a  curse  which  cannot  be  turned.  The  Tyrian 
deities,  the  heavenly  Baal,  Baal,  king  of  the  city,  the  Baal  of 
the  north,  are  to  inflict  the  punishments  most  feared  by  sea¬ 
faring  folk,  are  to  send  evil  winds  against  the  ship,  break  the 
cables,  smite  down  the  mast,  sink  the  ship  in  the  mighty  flood, 
and  bring  a  hurricane  against  the  sailors.  Milgishu  and  Esh- 
mun  are  to  destroy  the  land,  lead  its  inhabitants  into  captivity, 
destroy  the  food  for  their  mouths,  the  clothing  for  their  bodies, 
and  the  oil  for  their  anointing.  Ishtar  is  to  break  their  bows 
in  battle,  bring  them  to  the  feet  of  their  foes,  and  make  them 
captives.  With  such  mighty  oaths  were  client  princes  bound.2 

While  Baal  was  fortifying  his  position,  his  rival  Abdmelcart 
was  being  decapitated.  To  show  men  the  power  of  the  lord 
Ashur,  the  severed  heads  of  Abdmelcart  and  Sanduarri  were 
hung  on  the  necks  of  their  noble  followers,  and  with  music  and 
song  they  were  marched  into  the  Ribit  Nina,  where  the  author 
of  the  Genesis  table  of  nations  placed  Rehoboth  Ir,3  and  the 
present-day  Mosul  marks  the  ancient  bridge-head  across  the 
Tigris  from  Nineveh.  Long  after,  a  beautifully  polished  vase 
of  pale  yellow  and  white  stone,  which  had  once  been  filled  with 
holy  oil,  testified  to  the  booty  which  the  “ great  hand”  of  the 
king  had  carried  homeward. 

The  seacoast  thus  made  safe,  Esarhaddon  turned  his  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  other  flank,  for  the  single  track  across  the  desert 
was  in  constant  danger  from  the  nomads.  In  our  day  the 
Egyptian  outposts  were  made  safe  through  the  bridge-head  at 
Arish,  on  the  Syrian  side  of  the  desert;  in  those  of  Esarhaddon 
the  would-be  invader  of  Egypt  must  first  secure  Arza-asapa,  its 
predecessor  at  the  Nahal  Misri  or  “ Brook  of  Egypt,”  4  under 
whose  dry  stream  bed  crept  sufficient  water  to  irrigate  a  last 
oasis  before  the  full  terrors  of  the  desert  were  dared.  The 
ruler  of  Arza-asapa,  Asuhili,  was  led  away  to  Nineveh,  there 

1  The  Abar  Nahara  of  Ezra  4  :  10.  2  Winckler,  Forsch.,  II,  10  ff. 

3  Gen.  10  : 11.  4  E.  g.,  I  Kings  8  :  65;  II  Kings  24:7;  Isaiah  27 : 12. 


EGYPT  AT  LAST! 


377 


to  abide  at  the  city  gates  with  wild  beasts,  boars,  and  dogs  for 
company.  The  desert  bridge-head  was  safely  Assyrian. ' 

Other  Arabs  must  be  won  over  or  tamed  before  the  journey 
across  the  blazing  sands  to  the  border  of  Egypt  might  be 
undertaken.  The  north  Syrian  desert  acknowledged  the  pre¬ 
eminence  of  the  Qidri  tribe,  so  much  so  that  their  chief  was 
regularly  entitled  by  the  Assyrians  “King  of  the  Arabs.” 
First  of  the  chiefs  to  rule  over  the  black  goat’s  hair  tents  of 
Kedar1  was  Hazael,  who  had  lost  his  gods  to  Sennacherib. 
Among  the  greatest  was  Atar-samain,  the  “Heavenly  Athtar,” 
whom  the  Assyrians  identified  with  their  own  Dilbat  or  Venus. 
With  a  heavy  gift  he  had  come  to  Assyria,  had  kissed  the  royal 
feet,  and  had  begged  that  his  gods  might  be  returned  to  him. 
Sennacherib,  however,  claims  that  he  took  him  prisoner.2 
Esarhaddon  continues  the  story  by  stating  that  he  consulted 
the  sun-god,  he  had  compassion  on  him,  repaired  the  broken 
portions  of  the  gods,  wrote  on  them  the  power  of  Ashur  and 
the  glory  of  his  own  name,  and,  thus  adorned  and  renovated, 
handed  them  back  to  Hazael. 

With  them  went  a  gift  of  more  doubtful  acceptance,  the 
hand  of  Tabua,  an  Arab  lady  who  had  grown  up  in  the  woman’s 
quarters  of  his  own  palace.  The  price  paid  for  these  royal 
favours  was  not  high,  merely  an  increase  in  his  tribute  of  sixty- 
five  camels.  When  Hazael  was  carried  away  by  fate,  his  son 
Yatha  was  enthroned  in  his  stead.  As  first-fruits  from  his 
new  vassal,  Esarhaddon  imposed  an  increase  of  taxes  by  ten 
pounds  of  gold,  a  thousand  precious  stones,  fifty  camels,  a 
thousand  measures  of  spices.  Wahab  had  no  difficulty  in  per¬ 
suading  these  inveterate  wanderers  that  they  had  no  need  of 
Assyrian  protection.  Treason  to  the  Assyrian  nominee  could 
not  be  allowed  to  pass  unchallenged;  Esarhaddon  sent  his  aid 
to  Yatha  and  the  rival  chief  was  seized  and  brought  to  Nine¬ 
veh,  there  to  take  his  place  with  the  beasts  and  Asuhili  in  the 
city  gate. 

Toward  the  end  of  September,  676,  the  Assyrians  undertook 
an  expedition  on  a  more  extended  scale  into  the  Bazu,  the 
1  Cant.  1:5.  2  Cf.  p.  310. 


378 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


desert  whither  had  fled  Samsi  from  the  wrath  of  Tiglath 
Pileser.  The  trace  first  ran  through  waste  and  alkali  land,  a 
place  of  thirst,  then  through  a  hundred  and  forty  hours  of 
desert  proper,  filled  with  thorn  and  gazelle  mouth  stone,  twenty 
hours  of  snakes  and  scorpions,  which  covered  the  land  like 
grasshoppers.  This  brought  them  to  the  Bazu  proper,  a 
mountain  of  some  sort  of  stone,  and  through  it  the  army 
marched  twenty  hours  more  to  a  land  where  dwelt  six  kings 
and  two  queens  whose  domain  was  spoiled  and  the  gods  and 
other  goods  taken  to  Nineveh.  One  of  the  fugitives,  Lale  of 
Iadi,  a  desert  Judah  to  be  added  to  those  in  Palestine  and 
north  Syria,  heard  that  his  gods  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
the  invaders,  hastened  to  Nineveh  and  kissed  the  royal  feet. 
He  was  recognised  as  the  new  ruler  of  the  Bazu,  subject  as 
such  to  tribute  and  gift,  and  was  permitted  to  carry  back  his 
deities  properly  inscribed. 

Taharka  risked  no  chances  of  being  attacked  unawares. 
Egyptian  emissaries  were  found  all  through  Syria,  and  they 
enjoyed  no  little  success.  Ikkilu  of  Arvad  made  no  ado  about 
going  over  to  the  side  of  Egypt,  though  Baal  at  least  was  bound 
by  a  treaty  which  possessed  many  advantages  for  him.  On 
the  Philistine  plain  Ascalon  likewise  hearkened  to  the  Egyp¬ 
tian  lure. 

During  his  last  years  Hezekiah  of  Judah  had  been  completely 
under  the  influence  of  Isaiah,  and  so  had  been  anti-Egyptian. 
His  death  in  692  brought  the  twelve-year  Manasseh  to  the 
beginning  of  his  long  reign.1  The  new-fangled  innovations  in¬ 
troduced  by  the  regime  of  Isaiah,  Micah,  and  their  fellow  in¬ 
tellectuals,  found  little  favour  in  the  more  conservative  coun¬ 
tryside.  The  accession  of  a  young  and  pliable  son  of  Hezekiah 
began  shortly  a  strong  reaction  towards  the  good  old  days  be¬ 
fore  the  reform.  For  a  time  the  conservatives  contented  them¬ 
selves  with  restoring  the  cult  to  the  conditions  of  the  pre- 
Isaianic  days.  All  the  high  places  were  restored,  and  in  the 
smaller  villages  around  the  capital,  where  the  conservatives 
were  so  well  intrenched,  the  shaveling  priests  were  allowed  to 

1  Cf.  L.  E.  Fuller,  Reign  of  Manasseh ,  1912. 


EGYPT  AT  LAST! 


379 


burn  incense.  Since  Ahaz  had  sacrificed  his  first-born  in  the 
vain  attempt  to  persuade  Yahweh  to  save  Jerusalem  from  his 
enemies,  the  more  humane  had  developed  a  story  which  proved 
that  Yahweh  himself  would  not  accept  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac 
offered  by  his  father  Abraham.1  The  conservative  reaction 
once  more  led  men  to  pass  their  first-born  through  the  fire  in 
Topheth  to  Melech,  the  god-king.2  In  their  minds,  he  was 
doubtless  identified  with  Yahweh  himself;  the  influence  of  an 
Assyrian  monarch  who  was  likewise  god-king  must  also  be 
considered.  Divination  of  all  kinds,  even  to  the  invoking  of 
the  spirits  of  the  dead,  was  indulged  in.  The  Baals  were  once 
more  worshipped  and  Yahweh  was  called  a  Baal  again. 

Reaction  is  not  quite  the  word  to  apply  to  the  religious 
situation,  since  there  were  many  innovations  introduced  from 
abroad.  New  altars  were  erected  in  the  Yahweh  temple  and 
in  its  courts  for  the  sun,  moon,  zodiacal  signs,  and  all  the  host 
of  heaven.  The  sun  had  his  special  chariots  under  the  charge 
of  the  chamberlain,  Nathan  Melech,  whose  name  celebrates 
the  divine  king.  Altars  were  set  up  on  the  roof  of  the  upper 
chamber  of  Ahaz.3  In  the  cities  of  Judah  and  in  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem  the  children  gathered  wood,  the  fathers  kindled 
fire,  the  women  kneaded  the  dough  to  make  cakes  for  the 
Queen  of  Heaven  and  poured  out  libations  for  her.4  This  was 
certainly  an  importation  of  the  Mother  Ishtar  of  the  Baby¬ 
lonians,  and  we  find  for  the  first  time  the  cult  of  Tammuz,  her 
son  and  lover,  for  whom  the  women  of  Jerusalem  wept.5 

Jeremiah  protested  against  the  foreign  vanities  in  the  spirit 
of  the  earlier  prophets  and  cried  indignantly:  “Is  not  Yahweh 
in  Zion,  is  not  her  king  in  her  midst  ? ”  “Pass  over  to  the  isles 
of  Cyprus  and  see;  send  to  Kedar  and  consider  diligently;  see 
if  there  hath  ever  been  such  a  thing.  Hath  a  nation  changed 
its  gods?  Yet  my  people  have  changed  their  Glory.”  “To 
what  purpose  cometh  there  frankincense  from  Sheba  to  me 
and  calamus  from  a  far  country?  Your  burnt  offerings  are 
not  acceptable  to  me  nor  are  your  sacrifices  pleasing.”  “Ac- 

1  Gen.  22.  2  Cf.  Jer.  7  :  31 ;  19 :  5.  3 II  Kings  23. 

4  Jer.  7 :  17  ff.;  44 :  15  ff.;  cf.  II  Kings  21:5.  5  Ezek.  8  : 14. 


380 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


cording  to  the  number  of  thy  cities  are  thy  gods,  O  Judah, 
and  according  to  the  number  of  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  have 
ye  set  up  altars  to  the  shameful  thing.”  “  Though  Moses  and 
Samuel  stood  before  me,  yet  would  not  my  mind  be  favorable 
to  this  people;  cast  them  out  of  my  sight  and  let  them  go  forth 
into  exile.  I  will  cause  them  to  be  tossed  to  and  fro,  a  terror 
to  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth,  because  of  Manasseh,  son  of 
Hezekiah,  king  of  Judah,  for  that  which  he  has  done  in  Jeru¬ 
salem/ ?1 

For  some  years  Manasseh  was  considered  a  loyal  vassal  of 
Esarhaddon,  who  numbers  him  among  the  seacoast  kings  who 
contributed  to  the  new  palace  at  Nineveh.  As  the  reaction 
gained  headway,  it  became  more  nationalistic,  and  Manasseh 
went  over  whole-heartedly  to  the  Egyptians.  In  honour  of  the 
chief  Egyptian  deity,  he  named  the  son  who  was  destined  to 
succeed  him  Amon.  In  preparation  for  the  revolt  he  con¬ 
structed  an  outer  wall  to  the  city  of  David  on  the  west  side  of 
Gihon  in  the  valley,  even  to  the  entrance  of  the  Fish  Gate, 
compassed  the  sanctuary  and  Ophel  round  about,  and  raised 
it  to  a  very  great  height,  and  put  valiant  captains  in  all  the 
fortified  cities  of  Judah.  So  Manasseh  shed  innocent  blood 
very  much,  till  he  had  filled  Jerusalem  from  one  end  to  the 
other,  destroying  alike  the  partisans  of  Assyria  and  the  fol¬ 
lowers  of  Isaiah.  “Like  a  destroying  lion  has  your  own  sword 
destroyed  your  prophets”  was  the  comment  of  the  young  Jere¬ 
miah.2 

Esarhaddon  called  upon  his  gods  and  they  registered  their 
approval.  On  the  road  to  the  west  he  came  to  Harran,  famous 
for  its  temple  of  the  moon-god  Sin.  As  Marduk-shum-usur 
tells  Ashur-bani-apal :  “When  the  father  of  the  king  my  lord 
went  to  Egypt,  he  saw  in  the  district  of  Harran  a  temple  made 
of  cedar.  Sin  was  placed  on  a  staff,  two  crowns  were  upon 
his  head,  Nusku  stood  before  him.  The  father  of  the  king 
went  in,  the  crown  he  placed  on  his  head,  the  oracle  he  heard: 
‘Go,  conquer  the  countries  in  its  midst/”3 

1  Jer.  8 :  19;  2:10;  6:20;  11 : 13;  15  : 1,  4. 

2 II  Kings  21;  II  Chron.  33;  Jer.  2:30.  3  H.  923. 


Fig.  141.  DRY  BED  OF  THE  “RIVER  OF  EGYPT’’  ON  THE  DESERT 
ROAD  FROM  PALESTINE  TO  THE  NILE  VALLEY. 


I 


Fig.  142.  CAMEL-DRIVERS  ON  THE  DESERT  ROAD  FROM 

PALESTINE  TO  EGYPT. 


EGYPT  AT  LAST! 


381 


Adad-shum-usur  quoted  the  incantation  which  casts  down 
men  and  walls  in  the  midst  of  battle.1  The  armies  attempted 
to  make  these  promises  come  true  at  the  expense  of  the  Egyp¬ 
tians,  but  with  little  success  (675).  Esarhaddon  remained  in 
Egypt  the  next  year,  but  near  the  end  of  February,  673,  the 
Assyrians  suffered  a  serious  reverse  and  the  expedition  came 
to  a  sudden  end. 

Failure  in  Egypt  roused  the  Syrian  states  to  new  efforts  and 
new  states  revolted.  Nabu-shum-iddina  must  deplore  that 
while  certain  of  the  officials  of  the  house  will  be  present,  the 
men  of  Ebir-nari,  that  is,  the  region  west  of  the  Euphrates, 
will  not  come,  and  he  attempts  to  avert  the  wrath  of  his  master 
at  such  evil  tidings  by  introducing  his  report  with  these  hum¬ 
ble  words:  “I  am  a  dog,  yet  the  king  has  remembered  me.”  2 
Domestic  troubles  were  added  to  foreign.  His  Babylonian 
wife  was  ill,  and  the  king  had  taken  up  his  residence  in  Uruk 
that  she  might  go  on  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  in  search  of  heal¬ 
ing.  Although  Esarhaddon  had  elaborately  restored  Ishtar’s 
shrine,  the  goddess  proved  ungrateful,  and  in  March  of  671  the 
queen  died,  a  portent  of  evil  to  the  empire. 

Once  more  Esarhaddon  asks  advice  of  his  god.  He  is  going 
to  Egypt  to  fight  with  the  Ethiopian  Taharka.  Will  he  get 
the  better,  will  he  return  alive  from  this  second  campaign? 
Will  he  again  walk  in  his  palace  of  Nineveh?  If  he  goes  to 
Ascalon,  so  long  as  he  remains  in  the  Ascalonite  territory, 
will  the  Egyptians  and  the  others  fight  with  him?  If  he  goes 
to  Ebir-nari,  will  he  again  return  from  Ascalon  to  his  palace  ? 3 
We  cannot  but  believe  that  the  great  king  already  felt  hanging 
over  him  the  shadow  of  his  fate.  His  physician,  Arad  Nabu, 
had  no  such  foreboding;  he  was  confident  that  the  gods  would 
grant  long  life  to  the  king,  especially  as  he  himself  would  add 
his  prayers  day  and  night.4 

Recruited  by  the  troops  which  the  commander-in-chief,  Sha 
Nabu-shu,  had  withdrawn  from  the  Elamite  frontier,  the  army 
set  forth  from  Ashur  in  the  first  month  of  the  Assyrian  year, 


1 H.  12. 

3  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  68  ff.;  Klauber,  Texte,  41. 


2  H.  67. 
4tf.  113. 


382 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  April  of  671.  The  Euphrates  was  crossed  at  its  flood,  the 
difficult  mountains  were  climbed  like  a  wild  bull,  and  Tyre 
was  reached.  Baal  sat  tight  on  his  island,  and  Esarhaddon 
could  only  say  that  he  had  cut  him  off  from  food  and  drink, 
the  support  of  life.  In  despair  of  conquering  the  island  part 
of  the  city,  he  broke  camp  and  advanced  towards  the  desert 
strip  which  shut  him  off  from  the  Nile  valley. 

Ascalon  was  still  held  by  Taharka’s  troops,  but  Esarhaddon 
had  no  hesitation  in  leaving  so  mighty  a  fortress  in  his  rear. 
The  stages  of  the  journey  are  counted  from  Apqu  in  the  terri¬ 
tory  of  Samena,  a  datum  not  without  its  value  to  the  Biblical 
student,  for  according  to  the  Biblical  topography,  Aphek  be¬ 
longs  to  Judah  and  not  to  Simeon.1  Thirty  hours  thence 
brought  the  Assyrians  to  Raphia,  where  his  grandfather  had 
defeated  Sibu,  and  where  until  the  Great  War  was  the  Turko- 
Egyptian  boundary.  Not  far  away  they  reached  the  stream 
bed  of  the  so-called  “  Brook  of  Egypt,”  but  there  was  no  river 
here,  we  are  told,  and  from  this  point  onward  the  troops  might 
drink  only  the  nauseous  water  they  had  brought  with  them  in 
buckets. 

Although  the  army  was  now  mounted  on  the  camels  secured 
from  the  neighbouring  Arabs,  the  day’s  journey  became  ever 
shorter.  To  cover  a  space  estimated  at  but  twenty  hours  took 
no  less  than  fifteen  days,  sufficient  evidence  of  the  difficult}^  of 
the  way;  next  followed  four  hours  over  the  gabe  stones;  four 
more,  at  the  rate  of  two  a  day,  brought  the  credulous  Assyrians 
to  the  two-headed  serpents,  whose  bite  was  certain  death. 
Though  they  trampled  upon  these  saurians,  yet  had  they  no 
rest,  for  the  next  four  hours’  march  carried  them  through  a 
land  where  the  serpents  were  winged.  The  worst  was  yet  to 
come,  for  the  eight  days  consumed  in  passing  through  fifteen 
reckoned  hours’  distance  brought  the  invaders  into  such  diffi¬ 
culties  that  only  the  aid  of  Marduk,  restoring  life  to  the  almost 
dead  Assyrians,  carried  them  through  the  next  twenty  days. 
Strange  reading  this  for  those  who  argue  that  the  climate  has 
changed  for  the  worse  in  recent  centuries !  A  rest  in  Magan 
fortified  the  spirits  of  the  troops  and  enabled  them  to  endure 

1  Joshua  12:18;  15:53. 


Fig.  143.  ARABS  DRAWING  WATER  IN  THE  DESERT  COUNTRY 

SOUTH  OF  PALESTINE. 


Fig.  144.  WATERWORKS  AT  NEGUB,  BUILT  BY  ASHUR-NASIR-APAL 

AND  RESTORED  BY  ESARHADDON. 


EGYPT  AT  LAST! 


383 


the  last  forty  hours  which  must  be  suffered  ere  they  saw  be¬ 
fore  them  Ishhupri  on  the  edge  of  the  Nile  valley.1 

Egypt  offered  no  rest  for  the  wearied  troops.  Taharka’s 
army  was  found  at  Ishhupri,  and  fifteen  more  days  of  unbroken 
marching,  varied  only  by  three  great  battles,  on  the  3d,  16th, 
and  18th  of  July,  brought  the  force  four  days  later  under  the 
walls  of  Memphis.  Under  the  pitiless  sun  of  mid-July,  siege- 
engines  were  dragged  up,  and  in  a  day  and  a  half  the  capital 
of  lower  Egypt  was  theirs. 

Taharka  had  already  been  five  times  wounded  by  spear- 
thrusts  in  the  earlier  battles,  and  now  he  slipped  away  to 
Thebes,  but  his  brother,  his  wife,  his  palace  women,  his  sons 
and  daughters,  his  palace  officials,  the  son  of  the  former  king, 
all  the  immense  spoil  of  precious  metals  and  of  cattle,  were 
led  away  to  Assyria.  The  whole  land  of  Ethiopia,  such  is  the 
Assyrian  boast,  was  torn  away  from  Egypt.  Over  all  Egypt 
were  appointed  kings,  governors,  fortress  commanders,  resi¬ 
dents,  and  officials.  Stated  offerings  were  ordered  for  Ashur 
and  the  great  gods,  and  the  yearly  tribute  was  to  be  six  talents 
and  nineteen  pounds  of  gold;  three  hundred  talents  of  silver; 
one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  eighty-five  seemingly  of  cop¬ 
per;  one  hundred  and  ninety-nine  skins;  one  thousand  one 
hundred  and  forty  horses;  thirty  thousand  four  hundred  and 
eighteen  sheep ;  nineteen  thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  asses,  as  well  as  ebony  and  boxwood.  The  names  of  the 
cities  were  changed  and  pompous  Assyrian  ones  took  their 
place.  Fifty  of  the  royal  statues  were  inscribed  with  the  deeds 
of  the  Assyrian  king  and  were  re-erected  in  the  temples  of 
Egypt. 

None  of  these  statues  have  survived,  but  one  of  the  soldiers 
who  took  part  in  the  expedition,  Bel-shar-usur  by  name,  has 
left  us  his  figure,  dedicated  to  some  local  deity.  Bearded  and 
long-robed,  he  appears  in  rose  granite;  on  the  back  of  the  statue 
he  has  given  his  name,  not  in  its  Assyrian  form,  but  as  Bel- 
shazzer,  and  with  it  the  banner  of  the  detachment  in  which 
he  served.2 

1  Rogers,  Haverford  Studies,  II;  Parallels,  357  ff. 

2  Lidzbarski,  Ephemeris  fur  semit.  Epigraphik,  III,  117  f. 


384 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Matters  thus  arranged  in  Egypt,  Esarhaddon  left  his  com¬ 
mander-in-chief,  Sha  Nabu-shu,  as  his  representative,  and  be¬ 
gan  his  triumphal  march  homeward.  Ascalon  at  last  recog¬ 
nised  the  futility  of  resistance,  and  Manasseh  paid  for  his 
treason  by  a  term  of  imprisonment  in  Babylon.1  Baal  found 
himself  isolated  on  his  island,  his  commerce  falling  into  the 
hands  of  the  pro-Assyrian  Greek  kings  of  Cyprus.  He  made 
his  peace  by  bringing  his  daughter  and  all  the  tribute  which 
had  fallen  into  arrears.  The  cities  on  the  mainland  were  not 
restored  but  were  continued  under  Assyrian  officials.  Baal 
might  be  thankful  that  the  island  had  remained  inviolate. 

Lip-service  it  might  be,  but  Esarhaddon  was  satisfied.  On 
the  rocks  of  the  Dog  River,  where  the  kings  of  Egypt  and 
Assyria  before  him  had  placed  their  effigies,  he  carved  his  fig¬ 
ure,  and  with  it  an  inscription  which  told  of  the  capture  of 
Memphis,  of  Ascalon,  and  of  Tyre.  Farther  north,  in  the 
city  gate  of  the  Syrian  Judah,  his  own  stele  represented  Esar¬ 
haddon  flanked  by  the  two  crown  princes;  he  holds  a  rope  by 
which  Taharka  and  Baal  are  ringed  through  the  nose.  In  the 
case  of  Taharka,  we  know  that  this  is  an  unjustifiable  boast; 
perhaps  he  is  also  lying  in  the  case  of  Baal.  To  say  the  least, 
it  is  a  curious  commentary  on  his  claim  of  Tyrian  submission 
that  the  later  Greek  chronologers  give  as  the  period  of  Phoe¬ 
nician  naval  supremacy  the  years  677-642,  the  very  years  when 
Baal  was  free  from  Assyrian  control. 

Esarhaddon  had  no  more  than  reached  home  when  he  re¬ 
ceived  the  news  that  Sharru-ludari,  Necho,  and  Pakrur,  three 
of  the  kings  he  had  installed  in  Egypt,  had  broken  their  oath 
when  there  had  been  borne  in  upon  them  the  obvious  conclu¬ 
sion:  “If  Taharka  is  driven  out  of  Egypt,  how  then  can  we 
remain?”  Messengers  were  sent  him,  suggesting:  “Let  us 
make  alliance  one  with  another,  and  we  will  help  each  other; 
we  will  divide  the  land  between  us  and  no  foreigner  shall  rule 
over  us.”  Unfortunately  for  the  patriots,  the  Assyrian  gen¬ 
erals  got  wind  of  the  meditated  treachery  and  the  messengers 
carrying  the  letters  fell  into  their  hands. 

1 II  Chron.  33  :  10  ff. 


Fig.  145.  BAY  OF  ACCHO. 


Kj®?? 

Hf,V;v 


Spf-r; 

A  V  *'r> 


“®':!A'&vV  :■  ‘ 

>  *1.jN  ■  "  •  \*  v 

'  v'i'  ‘■V  v>-'VV  •<V-t  -v  >v' »'  i 


Fig.  14(5. 


RFLIEF  OF  K8AKII  ADDON  SIDK  lt\  SIOK.  WITH  Til  AT  OF 
THIS  FUYI’TIAN  KAMS10S  II  AT  THIS  DOO  U1VI0K. 


IGYTT  AT  HAST’ 


To. :  the  hr;  feane  Esarhaddon  inquired  of  his  god.  The 
fjrb.Tr:  was  agam  rsveurable  and  his  physician,  Arad  Nabin 
assured  hzn  hut  Nadu  and  Tashmetuin  would  cause  the  king 
vj  h~e  to  see  hs  sons  a  hundred  nears  old,  their  sons  and 
granrham  a  team  oh  age.  The  oracle  was  no  more  true  than 
iras  me  p'iws  ~_ih  for  Esarhaddon  never  reached  the  Nile 
-raley  In  Novmher  of  d6->  death  overtook  him  on  the  way. 

-  ZZiiiiizer  Tixte.  36  n  113. 


CHAPTER  XXX 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 

A  series  of  harem  intrigues  clouded  the  last  days  of  Esar- 
haddon.  His  one  legal  wife  had  died  before  him,  and  the 
same  fate  had  overtaken  his  first-born,  Sin-iddin-apal,  whose 
name,  “Sin  has  given  a  son  as  heir,”  pointed  to  the  priority 
which  caused  him  to  be  inducted  into  the  Succession  House. 
The  next  in  order,  if  age  were  to  be  considered,  was  Shamash- 
shum-ukin,  “Shamash  has  established  a  name  ”  A  third  bore 
that  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  “Ashur  has  created  a  son  as  heir,”  to 
indicate  that  from  birth  he  was  destined  to  succeed  to  the 
throne.  Any  question  of  precedence  must  be  argued  between 
these  two,  for  the  other  children,  the  lady  Sherua-eterat, 
Ashur-mukin-palea,  Shamash-meta-uballit,  and  Ashur-etil- 
shame-ersiti-uballitsu,  scarcely  merited  attention. 

The  education  of  Ashur-bani-apal  began  early.  At  birth 
Marduk  granted  him  a  wide-open  ear,  an  all-embracing  under¬ 
standing;  Nabu,  scribe  of  the  divine  hierarchy,  endowed  him 
with  his  own  wisdom;  from  Urta  and  Nergal  he  obtained  viril¬ 
ity  and  unequalled  strength.  As  he  grew  older  he  came  to 
need  teachers  who  were  a  little  less  divine.  Among  these,  his 
father  picked  Nabu-ahe-eriba.  He  accepts  the  appointment: 
“May  the  great  gods  of  heaven  and  earth  grant  long  life  to  the 
king  my  lord.  Since  the  king  thinks  on  us,  how  many  are 
there  since  that  day — the  king  we  have  not  seen,  in  the  king’s 
presence  we  would  stand.  Who  has  received  such  favour? 
Only  a  king  could  grant  it.  This  is  the  goodness  which  the 
king  has  done  me,  since  thou  hast  placed  me  before  the  crown 
prince,  that  I  should  be  his  teacher.  I  would  speak  with  him. 
Such  friendly  words  must  have  been  given  by  a  god.”1 

Thus  Ashur-bani-apal  secured  the  revelation  of  Adapa,  the 
hidden  treasure  of  the  whole  calligraphic  art.  In  the  houses 

1 H.  604. 

386 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


of  heaven  and  earth  he  was  seen,  and  in  the  assemblies  of  the 
skilled  artificers.  Dreams  and  visions,  however  unclear  he 
learned  to  interpret.  No  tablet,  whether  in  the  learned  Shn- 
merian  or  the  obscure  Akkadian,  was  too  difficult  for  him  to 
master,  and  his  chief  joy  was  the  reading  of  stone  inscriptions 
which  tradition  said  dated  from  before  the  hood. 


Some  of  the  subjects  he  studied  with  Nabu-ahe-eriba  may 
be  gathered  from  letters  sent  by  his  instructor  to  his  father. 
The  king  had  inquired  about  the  flaming  out  o:  the  stm :  thus 
it  is  said:  “When  the  gleam  of  the  day  is  like  smoke,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  year,  Adad  will  bring  an  inundation.  W~hen 
the  dav  is  dark  and  the  north  wind  blows,  it  is  the  *  eatins  of 
Xergal/  the  cattle  will  be  small."  “'Day  equals  sun"  inter¬ 
polates  Nabu-ahe-eriba.  The  rest  of  the  words  he  received,  he 
will  send  to  the  king.  “Shamash  in  the  way  of  Anu  dissipates 
his  brilliance,  this  means  evil  to  Elam."  “  Thus  it  is  written: 
‘Shamash  goes  in  the  way  of  Anu,  and  the  extension  of  his 
brilliance  ceases,  this  means  fate  for  Elam.  Through  cold  evil 
will  come.'  Four  days  at  its  rising  the  south  wind  blew,  now 
the  north  wind  blows.”  1 

On  the  22d  of  May  Jupiter  was  seen  close  to  one  of  the 
stars,  on  the  29th  of  April  of  the  following  year  he  disappeared 
from  the  heavens  for  twentv  or  thirtv  davs.  For  one  month 
and  five  davs  he  remained  out  of  the  heavens:  on  the  bth  of 
June  he  was  seen  in  the  region  of  Orion:  he  has  exceeded  his 
appointed  time  by  five  days.  This  is  the  interpretation:  “If 
Jupiter  is  seen  in  June  there  will  be  evil  for  the  land,  grain  will 
be  dear.  If  Jupiter  nears  Orion,  the  god  Xergal  will  eat.  If 
Jupiter  enters  Orion,  the  gods  will  rage  against  the  land.  It 
Jupiter  is  seen  in  the  way  of  Anu,  the  crown  prince  will  kill 
his  father  and  ascend  the  throne."  Coming  front  the  tutor  of 
the  crown  prince  to  his  pupil’s  father,  such  a  statement  was 
open  to  possible  misconstruction.  Nabu-ahe-eriba  points  out 
carefully  that  the  Anu  way  denotes  Elam,  so  that  Jupiter  is 
threatening  Elam,  not  Assyria.  His  uneasiness  persists,  and 
even  after  this  explanation  he  adds:  “Nevertheless,  as  a  pro- 


1  //.  405. 


388 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


tection  against  mischance,  let  the  king  execute  incantations  of 
freeing  from  evil.” 

When  he  has  completed  the  five  excess  days,  Jupiter  will 
round  out  a  hundred  days.  This  is  the  interpretation:  “If 
Nibiru  rises,  the  gods  will  be  angry,  destruction  will  rule,  peace 
will  be  broken,  friendly  relations  will  be  destroyed,  there  will 
be  floods  and  storms,  a  hurricane  will  rage,  the  lands  will  be 
destroyed;  the  gods  will  not  hearken  to  prayers,  will  not  ac¬ 
cept  beseeching,  the  seer  shall  not  make  incantations.”  This 
has  been  extracted  for  the  king  according  to  the  tablet.  The 
day  of  the  eclipse  is  favourable,  but  he  did  not  send  it.  The 
eclipse  goes  up  from  the  mountain  and  turns  to  the  west. 
Everything  took  place  as  was  expected.  Jupiter  and  Venus 
stood  in  the  eclipse  until  it  was  free.  To  the  king  it  is  favour¬ 
able.  Whatever  evil  there  is  in  it  refers  to  Amurru,  to-morrow 
the  report  of  the  moon’s  eclipse  will  be  sent.1 

Nor  was  the  education  of  the  crown  prince  merely  learned. 
Daily  he  exercised  himself  in  horsemanship  and  in  chariot- 
driving,  in  holding  the  bow,  in  shooting  the  arrow,  in  hurling 
the  heavy  spear.  Like  a  dealer  in  weapons  he  constructed 
the  shields  used  by  the  squires  of  the  bowmen  and  the  spear¬ 
men,  so  that  he  was  acknowledged  the  master  of  all  the  skilled 
artisans.  At  the  same  time  he  acquired  such  knowledge  of 
ruling  as  behooved  a  king,  and  he  walked  in  the  path  of  roy¬ 
alty.  He  stood  before  his  father  the  king,  acting  as  inter¬ 
mediary  for  the  nobles.  Without  him  was  no  official  named, 
no  governor  detailed  to  his  province;  his  father  recognised  his 
ability  and  loved  him  above  all  his  brethren. 

More  potent  than  the  love  which  the  gods  had  stirred  in  his 
father's  heart  was  the  fact  that  Ashur-bani-apal  was  the  dar¬ 
ling  of  the  militarist  party,  which  not  even  the  Egyptian  suc¬ 
cess  could  entirely  conciliate,  and  which  had  never  forgiven 
its  monarch  for  the  restoration  of  Babylon.  When  Esarhad- 
don  set  forth  on  his  second  trip  to  Egypt,  Ashur-bani-apal  was 
left  in  charge  of  affairs  at  home.  Aided  by  the  advice  which 
the  sun-god  furnished  through  the  liver  omens,  he  carried  on 

1 H.  407. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


389 


the  imperial  administration.  His  was  the  necessity  of  decid¬ 
ing  whether  the  rab  mug  Nabu-shar-usur  should  be  sent 
against  Ikkilu  of  Arvad  or  against  Egypt;  whether  Sha  Nabu- 
shu,  the  commander-in-chief,  would  have  trouble  with  the 
men  of  Elli,  the  Medes,  or  the  Cimmerians;  whether  Assyria 
would  suffer  from  the  Shuprians,  the  Ahlame,  the  Ethiopians, 
or  the  Egyptians.1 

The  disastrous  defeat  of  673  proved  that  all  the  Assyrian 
resources  would  be  called  upon  to  conquer  Egypt ;  Esarhaddon 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  Ashur-bani-apal  should  be  left 
behind  with  full  powers.  All  the  great  gods,  beginning  with 
Ashur,  their  father,  were  besought  for  permission  to  grant  him 
this  favour.  Balasi  was  asked  about  the  best  da  vs  for  the 
appearance  of  Ashur-bani-apal  before  his  father.  He  replies 
that  the  fourth  day  is  a  good  day,  when  the  beginning  of  the 
month  arrives  it  will  be  favourable  for  action.  They  have  told 
the  king:  "On  the  first  let  not  the  king’s  son  go  out  of  the 
gate.”  The  king  may  go  out  of  the  shrine  and  order  that  his 
son  be  brought  before  his  face.  The  king  has  inquired  about 
Ashur-mukin-palea.  Let  him  also  come  on  the  fourth,  it  is  a 
favourable  day.2 

The  star  Mars  is  dominant  for  the  crown  prince,  its  brilliance 
is  increasing.  It  will  be  dominant  until  the  middle  of  May. 
and  if  the  crown  prince  should  come  before  the  king  while 
Mars  was  so  dominant  and  harm  should  befall  him.  would  not 
Balasi  and  his  friends  be  responsible?  lie  should  not  return 
to  the  land  of  Subarti  (Assyria),  info  the  shrine  he  should  not 
go.  No  one  should  enter  the  palace  before  the  king,  since  that 
would  be  sin.  If  it  is  not  agreeable  to  the  king  to  do  it  this 
month,  then  lot  him  enter  in  April,  the  beginning  of  the  year, 
when  Bin  has  finished  t  he  (lay.8 

Despite  this  warning,  the  ceremonies  wore  gone  through 
with  on  the  12th  of  Aim  (May),  while  the  feast  of  the  goddess 
Gula  was  being  celebrated.  Mon  of  Assyria,  groat  and  small, 
from  the  lower  and  the  upper  seas,  wore  collected  and  ordered 
to  swear  by  the  great  gods  that  they  would  protect  the  position 


1  Knudtzoii,  (icbt'lv,  (Ml  f . :  Klawlx'r,  7Vi7»,  11 


//.  HM 


*  n  aw. 


390 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  Ashur-bani-apal  as  crown  prince  and  afterwards  as  ruler  of 
Assyria.  Accompanied  by  the  rejoicing  of  the  whole  army  in 
camp,  Ashur-bani-apal  entered  into  the  Succession  House  and 
was  exalted  above  his  brethren. 

On  the  next  day,  the  13th,  the  ceremonies  of  “  shepherdship  ” 
were  to  be  carried  out.  Adad-shum-usur  gives  the  directions. 
When  the  crown  prince  shall  come  to  the  court  of  the  temple, 
he  shall  enter  the  reed  hut.  He  shall  seat  himself  and  pray, 
then  shall  turn  and  come  from  the  shrine.  The  Shearer  shall 
enter  that  he  may  eat  bitter  herbs,  and  they  shall  make  him 
drink  out  of  a  vessel  made  from  a  skull.  The  gate  of  the 
enemy’s  domain  shall  be  in  gloom.  Actually,  the  ceremonies 
of  shepherdship  were  carried  out  by  Nabu-nadin-shum,  who 
sealed  the  message  from  his  lips  and  sent  it  to  the  king  by 
special  messenger.  Esarhaddon  writes  Adad-shum-usur  about 
the  use  of  the  royal  image.  It  is  suggested  that  the  rites  be 
performed  on  the  16th,  since  that  is  a  good  day,  though  the 
17th  is  not.  Let  the  ceremonies  be  performed  as  their  fathers 
did  it  for  their  lord,  and  as  the  Irrigator  did  it  the  last  time. 
Bel  and  Nabu  have  established  justice,  why  should  there  be 
delay  ?  1 

Basi,  however,  has  been  approached  by  Nabu-nadin-shum 
at  the  request  of  the  king,  and  he  advises  that  he  sit  down  on 
the  15th  and  rise  up  on  the  22d,  and  on  the  24th  go  out  to  the 
river  to  complete  the  ritual.  Further  instructions  can  be  fur¬ 
nished  when  they  appear  before  the  king.  In  its  freeing  in¬ 
cantation,  it  is  said:  “On  the  seventh  day  he  shall  abide  in 
the  hut,  cleansing  rites  shall  be  performed  over  him,  the  cere¬ 
mony  used  for  a  sick  man  shall  be  carried  out.”  For  seven 
days  they  have  made  the  lifting  up  of  the  hand  prayers  before 
the  gods  of  the  night  and  the  incantation  destroying  all  evil 
at  the  same  time  has  been  repeated.  The  seven  days  he  re¬ 
mains  in  the  hut  he  shall  show  himself  to  the  gods  of  the  night 
and  reverence  his  god  and  goddess.  If  the  king  wishes  this 
done  at  once,  the  eighth  is  a  favourable  time.2 

As  to  the  freeing  incantation  from  all  evil,  which  the  king 
1ff.  4;  369;  362.  2  H.  53;  370. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


391 


has  decided  should  be  performed  the  next  day,  that  day  is 
not  favourable;  they  will  make  preparations  on  the  25th,  on 
the  26th  they  will  bring  it  about.  Let  not  the  king  speak  of 
the  content  of  those  signs;  Bel  and  Nabu  are  quite  capable 
of  bringing  sufficient  help  and  they  will  cause  it  to  come  to 
the  king.  Esarhaddon  has  asked  Bani,  deputy  of  the  chief 
physician,  why  he  makes  libations  for  Nabu-nadin-shum;  the 
answer  is  that  it  is  really  for  the  king,  since  Bel  and  Nabu,  the 
same  gods  who  protect  the  king,  have  restored  his  life.  The 
Mistress  of  Life,  the  king’s  gracious  divinity,  who  bestows 
length  of  days,  old  age,  offspring,  fulness  of  life  to  the  king, 
has  also  taken  his  hand.  Through  the  agency  of  the  god  and 
the  protecting  genius  of  the  king  he  lives.1 

The  happy  event  left  its  natural  impress  upon  the  next 
generation.  We  find  such  names  as  Mar-sharri-bel-ahe,  “The 
king’s  son  is  the  lord  of  the  brethren,”  Nabu-mar-sharri-usur, 
or  Sin-mar-sharri-usur,  where  Nabu  or  Sin  is  invoked  to  pro¬ 
tect  the  crown  prince.  Flattery  went  so  far  in  one  case  that 
a  certain  youth  was  known  through  life  as  Mar-sharri-ilia, 
“The  crown  prince  is  my  god  !”  Flattery  could  go  no  further. 

According  to  Ashur-bani-apal  himself,  this  was  a  time  of 
almost  millennial  felicity.  The  gods  looked  with  pleasure  on 
his  good  works,  for  it  was  their  order  which  had  placed  him 
on  the  throne  of  his  father.  The  nobles  and  high  officials 
loved  his  rule,  for  he  secured  them  favours  from  his  father. 
Because  of  the  naming  of  his  mighty  name,  the  four  world 
regions  rejoiced  and  the  subject  kings  from  the  upper  and 
lower  seas  sent  embassies  to  express  their  joy  at  his  accession. 
The  weapons  of  the  rebellious  enemy  were  left  in  their  camp, 
the  charioteer  loosed  his  span  of  horses;  their  lances  lost  their 
sharpness,  the  filled  bows  took  their  rest.  Evil-doers  were 
kept  down  so  that  they  planned  no  warfare.  In  city  or  in 
house,  no  man  took  away  the  goods  of  his  neighbour  by  force; 
in  the  territory  of  the  whole  land  no  man  provoked  to  evil. 
One  might  traverse  alone  and  in  safety  the  most  distant 
streets.  No  robber  poured  out  blood  nor  was  an  evil  deed 

1  H.  51;  204. 


392 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


perpetrated.  The  lands  occupied  a  peaceful  abode,  the  four 
world  regions  were  happy  as  fine  oil. 

Very  different  was  the  reality.  Around  a  hard-working 
crown  prince  wTas  a  large  staff — an  abarakku,  a  rein-holder,  a 
guardsman,  a  recorder,  a  charioteer,  a  captain,  a  head  baker, 
a  chamberlain,  an  Aramaic  scribe,  not  to  speak  of  the  several 
deputies  and  privates  of  the  guard.  Through  them  he  carried 
on  his  administration. 

Best  wishes  are  sent  by  Marduk-shakin-shum  to  Ashur- 
bani-apal  and  his  brothers.  He  has  written  all  the  words  on 
a  tablet  as  the  king’s  mouth  has  spoken.  The  king  has  ordered 
him,  if  he  should  go  to  Kalhu,  to  send  to  Ahuni.  He  has 
already  collected  thirty  or  forty  good  tablets.  At  first  he 
misunderstood  the  king’s  letter,  now  he  realises  what  was  de¬ 
sired.  It  is  true  that  the  space  assigned  was  too  small  for  an 
orderly  arrangement.  He  is  regularly  performing  the  cere¬ 
monies  and  has  brought  a  burnt  offering.  The  women  are 
collected  together  in  the  treasure-house.  The  king  has  in¬ 
quired  the  reason;  they  are  therein  for  the  food  and  for  pour¬ 
ing  out  water  on  the  head  in  abundance.  Since  they  are  so 
many  and  abide  in  it  together,  if  it  please  the  king  may  they 
abide  in  the  open.  When  they  have  prepared  the  rites  to  the 
14th,  may  he  go  to  the  river.  Let  the  king  send  orders  how 
the  ceremonies  are  to  be  completed.  As  to  the  maid  who  is 
with  them,  how  does  the  king  mean  ?  When  he  says  that  they 
should  perform  the  ceremonies  over  her,  is  this  to  be  done  by 
them?  Let  the  king  wear  for  a  sufficient  time  the  white  gar¬ 
ments  he  has  written  about.  Two  days,  the  20th  and  the 
21st,  are  enough;  on  the  22d  let  the  king  gird  up  his  loins  and 
act  as  usual.  When  Kinu-naid  sees  the  royal  edict,  he  will 
die  of  bitterness  of  soul.  Yesterday  the  observation  failed 
and  Marduk-shakin-shum  is  sadly  disturbed.1 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  perform  the  rites  on  the  24th  as  the 
king  desired,  for  the  tablets  are  too  many.  Whenever  they 
bring  the  images  seen  by  the  king  into  the  midst,  then  within 
five  or  six  days  they  shall  take  up  the  first.  The  month  of 

1H.  453;  17;  378  f. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


393 


January  is  a  propitious  time  for  the  performance  of  the  free¬ 
ing  incantation.  During  that  month  let  the  crown  prince  per¬ 
form  them,  and  let  also  the  people  whom  the  king  has  indi¬ 
cated.  As  to  the  Shumerian  originals  of  the  freeing  incanta¬ 
tions  which  the  king  has  ordered  sent  by  messenger  to  Nine¬ 
veh,  Nabu-nadin-ahe  shall  bring  them  and  the  tablets  of 
another  series  as  well.  Let  the  king  perform  the  ceremonies 
on  the  2d  of  January,  then  let  the  crown  prince  perform  them 
on  the  4th,  and  the  people  may  perform  them  on  the  6th,  un¬ 
less  the  king  should  desire  to  have  them  gone  through  at  once. 
Some  rites  have  been  omitted,  and  Marduk-shakin-shum  had 
written  that  they  would  be  given  the  next  day.  Then  it  came 
from  his  heart  that  there  was  a  sign  of  opposition  on  that  day, 
and  therefore  it  was  unfavourable.  Let  the  ceremony  be 
postponed  until  the  7th,  when  they  will  arrive  in  person  and 
execute  them.1 

There  is  no  indication  that  he  is  crown  prince  when  Ashur- 
bani-apal  addresses  his  father.  The  king  his  lord  has  bidden 
him  to  order  Rahis-sharri  to  come  to  be  questioned;  he  claims 
he  has  acted  by  order  of  the  king  and  suggests  that  his  ques¬ 
tioner  ask  laze  about  the  Cimmerians.  To  the  further  ques¬ 
tion,  “Why  are  the  Cimmerians ? ' ’  he  replies  that  the  enemy 
are  destroying.2 

A  whole  group  of  letters  are  directed  to  Ashur-bani-apal  as 
crown  prince.  He  must  write  his  subordinates  about  this 
Rahis-sharri,  to  the  deputy  and  Nabu-dini-amur  about  the 
thirteen  men  Ae-ibni  carried  off  with  him  when  he  fled  from 
Der.  His  father  orders  Ashur-ukin,  who  was  stationed  on  the 
Haldian  boundarv,  to  send  deserters  from  the  country  round 
about  to  the  crown  prince.  Shumai  writes  to  tell  him  that  he 
has  expended  four  hundred  of  the  thousand  measures  of  grain 
given  his  father,  the  remaining  six  hundred  are  still  in  his  pos¬ 
session.  As  the  chiefs  of  all  the  world  entered  before  the 
father,  may  they  enter  before  the  face  of  the  crown  prince.3 

The  nobles  of  Arbela  have  business  with  the  crown  prince, 
and  an  unknown  writer  announces  that  he  has  learned  from 

1  H.  IS;  20.  5  H.  1026.  3  H.  430;  434;  948. 


394 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Nabu-nasir,  the  staff-bearer,  that  Sin-balatsu-iqbi,  son  of  Nin- 
gal-iddina,  has  sent  a  pound  of  gold  by  the  rein-holder  to  Saba, 
the  steward  of  the  crown  prince.  Another  correspondent 
reports  that  the  limestone  foundation  is  ready  to  have  the 
royal  name  inscribed  upon  it.  Nabu-shum-iddina,  priest  of 
Nabu  at  Kalhu,  writes  about  the  placing  of  the  new  bed  in 
the  “ Couch  House.”  Nani  tells  of  a  shepherd  who  came  to 
him  in  Kalhu.  Ibashshi-ilu,  astrologer  and  priest  of  Bel  in 
Babylon,  complains  bitterly  of  Ashur-natkil,  the  captain  of 
Adinni.1 

Sharru-naid,  son  of  Bel-rimanni,  the  priest  of  Bit  Kidmuri, 
reports  that  the  chief  butler  who  holds  the  weapon  of  Marduk 
has  without  authority  of  the  king  or  the  crown  prince  seized 
and  imprisoned  him,  the  house  of  his  father  he  has  plundered, 
as  much  as  his  father  acquired  under  the  protection  of  the  king 
he  has  taken  away.  One  talent  and  one  pound  of  fine  silver, 
the  vessels  of  the  treasure-house  and  the  house  of  the  queen 
mother  at  the  same  time  he  carried  off.  Is  he  to  rescue  his 
father’s  estates?  He  has  been  to  the  house  of  records.  May 
the  crown  prince  give  heed,  without  the  authority  of  the  king 
or  the  king’s  son,  nothing  can  even  be  spoken.2 

The  scribe  of  the  “New  House,”  Ishdi  Nabu,  writes  the 
crown  prince  about  Ashur-shezibanni,  and  informs  him  that  he 
is  bringing  the  dues  of  Nabu.  Nadin-shum-ilu,  son  of  Aramish- 
shar-ilani,  the  musharkis  of  the  king’s  order,  has  made  memo¬ 
rial  before  his  face,  saying:  “My  father  has  died  in  the  enemy’s 
land.  Fifty  of  his  personal  guard  have  taken  twelve  horses 
and  have  located  in  the  vicinity  of  Nineveh.  I  spoke  to  them 
as  follows:  ‘My  father  is  dead,  why  do  you  neglect  the  watch 
of  the  king?’”  He  is  being  sent  on  to  the  king  to  give  fur¬ 
ther  information.  As  for  that  Carchemish  merchant,  his  ser¬ 
vants  killed  him,  but  Ishdi  Nabu  has  permitted  no  guilty  man 
to  escape,  they  have  been  made  “protected”  servants  of  Nin¬ 
th  and  the  Queen  of  Kidmuri,  to  whom  mothers  pour  out  liba¬ 
tions.  They  have  been  brought  to  the  king.  As  for  Sippar, 
let  the  king  be  patient,  they  have  no  anxiety.3 

1H.  445;  65;  950;  189;  500..  2  H.  152. 


3  H.  186  ff. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


395 


The  task  work  of  the  city  of  Tarbisu  instituted  by  the  father 
of  the  crown  prince  has  been  seen,  accepted,  and  performed  by 
Shupa,  who  said:  “May  my  name  be  acceptable  before  my 
lord/’  His  father’s  scribe,  for  the  reckoning  of  the  work,  com¬ 
mitted  it  to  the  hands  of  drunken  men.  His  father’s  messen¬ 
ger,  whom  he  appointed  over  it  as  his  jurisdiction,  heard  as 
follows:  “The  scribe  directing  the  work  has  gone,  he  has  broken 
out  and  has  fled  with  the  money.”  That  which  should  have 
completed  the  remainder  of  the  work  has  not  been  given. 
Now  let  them  assign  the  tax  which  the  king  receives  from  his 
father  to  the  crown  prince,  let  him  direct  the  work,  let  Shupa 
perform  the  work  which  is  in  Kalhu,  which  was  committed  to 
his  father,  that  Shupa  may  render  an  account  to  the  crown 
prince.  There  is  no  one  who  will  listen  to  him  and  come,  un¬ 
less  it  be  a  man  from  before  the  crown  prince.  If  the  crown 
prince  turns  his  face  away,  he  will  return  and  die.  Has  he  not 
already  rendered  to  the  crown  prince  the  service  he  should 
do?  He,  his  brother,  and  his  mother,  reverence  the  crown 
prince  his  lord.  Let  the  crown  prince  inquire  about  his  grand¬ 
father,  Ashur-bel-ukin;  did  he  not  stand  at  his  side  as  leader 
when  Sennacherib  gave  him  a  position,  did  he  not  appoint  him 
among  the  scribes?  Let  not  the  crown  prince  permit  him  to 
be  cast  down,  let  not  the  name  of  his  grandfather  and  the 
official  position  of  his  father  perish  from  the  crown  prince’s 
house,  for  in  that  house  stood  his  father  and  his  grandfather. 
The  king,  the  father  of  the  crown  prince,  loved  the  son  of  a 
master-workman,  his  face  was  towards  the  son  of  the  lord  of 
his  work.  What  are  Shupa’s  sins  ?  He  is  the  dog  of  the  crown 
prince  beside  the  threshold  of  his  house.1 

If  we  turn  to  the  oracles,  we  find  how  little  truth  there  was 
in  the  millennial  picture  drawn  by  the  young  prince.  So  far 
from  the  world  quarters  rejoicing  like  fine  oil,  he  must  inquire 
about  combinations  of  enemies:  the  Ituai,  no  longer  a  part  of 
the  Assyrian  army,  the  Elamites,  Ahlame,  and  Cimmerians, 
the  men  of  Acco  and  Egypt;  again  it  is  one  of  the  Mannai, 
Medes,  Cimmerians,  Sidonians,  and  Egyptians;  a  third  adds 

1  H.  885. 


396 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Shuprians,  Pilpatai,  Ethiopians,  and  Shabuqai  to  the  Ahlame 
and  Egyptians. 

Nor  was  it  this  encircling  ring  of  enemies  which  alone  was 
to  be  feared;  the  last  inquiry  asks  also  whether  there  is  danger 
to  be  anticipated  from  the  bearded  chiefs,  the  king’s  Com¬ 
panions,  his  own  brother  or  the  brothers  of  his  father,  the 
members  of  the  royal  family.  He  doubts  the  loyalty  of  his 
charioteer  and  of  his  chariot  attendant,  of  the  night-watch,  of 
his  royal  messengers  and  of  his  body-guard,  of  the  officers  in 
the  palace  and  those  on  the  frontier,  of  his  cellarer  and  baker. 
He  fears  for  what  he  eats  and  what  he  drinks,  he  fears  by  day 
and  by  night;  in  the  city  and  without  there  is  danger  that  a 
revolt  against  him  will  be  undertaken.1 

That  his  fear  for  what  he  drank  was  not  without  founda¬ 
tion  is  shown  by  an  episode  in  one  of  the  letters.  Esarhaddon 
had  ordered  a  potion  to  be  prepared  for  the  sickly  Ashur-bani- 
apal ;  Adad-shum-usur,  always  a  good  friend  of  the  crown 
prince,  did  not  quite  dare  to  accuse  his  rivals  of  an  attempt  to 
poison  their  patient,  but  he  broadly  hints  it.  As  for  the  po¬ 
tion  of  which  the  king  has  sent,  it  is  very  good,  since  the  king 
has  chosen  the  persons  who  have  made  it.  He  and  his  col¬ 
leagues  will  hasten  to  make  them  drink  first,  then  afterwards 
the  crown  prince  shall  drink  it.  Then  he  loses  courage:  “But 
what  am  I  saying !  I  am  an  old  man  who  has  lost  his  reason. 
That  which  the  king  has  spoken  is  as  final  as  the  word  of 
God.”  2 

After  his  return  from  his  successful  Egyptian  expedition  of 
671,  Esarhaddon  was  persuaded  to  grant  this  same  title  of 
King’s  Son  to  Shamash-shum-ukin,  localising  it  in  Babylon  as 
the  first  was  connected  with  Assyria.  Partisans  of  the  elder 
son  no  doubt  felt  that  this  was  an  attempt  to  console  him  for 
deprivation  of  undoubted  rights  by  a  position  of  inferior  honour. 
Thinking  patriots  must  realise  that  to  overturn  the  existing 
settlement,  however  strong  the  appeal  of  Shamash-shum-ukin ’s 
seniority,  was  to  invite  trouble  at  no  distant  date. 

Adad-shum-ukin,  wise  old  courtier  that  he  was,  protested 

1  Klauber,  Texte,  44.  2  H.  3. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


397 


against  such  division  of  authority:  “That  which  cannot  be 
done  in  heaven,  the  king  my  lord  is  doing  on  earth  and  is 
showing  us.  Thou  didst  clothe  thy  son  in  royal  robes,  thou 
didst  order  Assyria  to  obey  him,  now  thou  hast  set  up  thy 
eldest  son  in  Babylon.  What  the  king  my  lord  has  done  for 
the  kings  his  sons  is  not  good  for  Assyria.  Now  Ashur  has 
granted  thee,  0  king  my  lord,  to  rule  from  the  rising  to  the 
setting  of  the  sun;  look  on  these  thy  gracious  sons  and  rejoice 
thy  heart.  The  king  my  lord  has  caused  to  arise  from  his 
heart  a  word  which  is  not  good  and  by  it  thou  art  made  weak.”  1 

Such  plain  speaking  was  not  to  the  taste  of  Esarhaddon,  and 
the  ban  was  placed  on  Adad-shum-usur.  Letters  came  from 
the  sinner  and  his  friends  declaring  that  he  did  not  say  what 
was  charged  against  him,  that  he  and  his  son  Arad  Gula  would 
share  in  the  installation  ceremony  and  would  support  the  new 
arrangements.  Ishtar-shum-eresh,  colleague  and  close  friend 
of  Adad-shum-usur,  assured  his  lord  “from  his  heart  he  did 
not  speak  it.”  2 

By  the  1st  of  May,  670,  we  find  the  title  “crown  prince  of 
Babylon”  assigned  to  Shamash-shum-ukin,  although  the  for¬ 
mal  installation  was  delayed  until  later  in  the  month.  Mar- 
duk-shakin-shum  has  on  the  day  of  writing  recited  twenty-one 
tablets  by  the  riverside,  including  one,  two,  or  three  hand- 
raisings  to  the  moon  and  sun  gods,  the  stars  Mars  and  Tar- 
tahu,  and  various  freeing  incantations.  At  evening  Arad  Ea 
will  perform  the  rites  and  ceremonies  on  the  roof  of  the  palace. 
The  king  should  realise  that  a  magician  cannot  offer  up  prayers 
on  an  evil,  unpropitious  day.  On  the  following  evening,  the 
.15th,  Marduk-shakin-shum  will  himself  perform  the  incanta¬ 
tions.  The  next  two  he  will  carry  out  the  rites  before  the  va¬ 
rious  goddesses,  Dilbat,  Belit,  Sarpanitum,  Gula,  and  Nana. 
He  has  spread  forth  his  hands  and  besought  the  god,  and  the 
gods  have  blessed  the  king  and  his  sons.  If  it  please  the  king, 
let  them  send  to  Kalhu  and  there  recite  prayers  to  Sin,  and  at 
the  same  time  freeing  incantations  for  the  crown  prince  of 
Babylon,  whatever  sin  may  need  expiation.3 

1  H.  870.  2  H.  594;  117  f . ;  656;  34. 


3  //.  23. 


398 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Ceremonial  visits  in  company  with  the  king’s  sons  were 
made  by  Adad-shum-usur,  Ashur-nasir,  Sasi,  and  Arad  Ea  to 
Kalhu  on  the  twelfth  day,  to  Nineveh  on  the  fifteenth.  Arad 
Gula  expresses  the  pious  hope  that  the  gods,  as  many  as  this 
day  preserve  all  things,  may  stand  among  the  protectors  of 
the  king,  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  and  of  Shamash-shum-ukin,  very 
greatly.  The  whole  ceremony  has  been  completed  on  the 
twenty-second  day.  They  have  taken  charge  of  everything 
and  have  written  the  tablets  together.  How  shall  the  rents 
in  the  garments  be  mended?1 

All  present  took  the  oath.  Esarhaddon  ordered:  “Make 
Adad-shum-usur  swear;  why  does  he  declare  ‘The  king’s  son 
should  not  go  with  Shamash-shum-ukin  to  the  installation  ser¬ 
vice  before  the  22d  of  October’?”  He  has  already  taken  the 
oath  in  the  city  of  Akkad,  by  the  gods  of  the  king  he  swore. 
Let  them  fill  a  hundred  days.  In  gratitude  for  his  deliver¬ 
ance,  his  letters  heap  up  the  titles,  Great  King’s  Son,  Son  of 
the  King  of  All  Lands,  Son  of  the  King  of  the  Lands.  One 
contains  an  instructive  slip.  He  begins  “To  the  King’s  Son 
of  Ashur,”  then  remembers  that  there  is  now  more  than  one 
King’s  Son,  and  adds  after  “Ashur”  the  word  “great.”  2 

Mardi  was  another  of  those  who  found  it  wise  to  make  a 
sudden  about-face.  “To  Bel,  Nabu,  and  Shamash  constantly 
I  pray  for  the  king  my  lord,  saying:  May  the  crown  prince  my 
lord  receive  the  royalty  of  his  father’s  house.  I  am  his  ser¬ 
vant,  his  dog,  and  his  staff.  In  his  shadow  may  I  see  light. 
Bel,  Nabu,  and  Shamash,  when  they  hear  my  prayer,  will 
grant  everlasting  dominion,  an  enduring  reign,  and  like  the 
going  forth  of  the  sun  all  the  lands  in  thy  course  shall  be  bright. 
But  I  am  in  the  midst  of  darkness,  no  one  brings  me  near  the 
court  of  the  king.  My  misdeeds  against  the  crown  prince  they 
accepted,  the  king  my  lord  has  sent  concerning  me,  saying: 
‘Pardon  his  misdeeds,  grant  it.’”  His  brother  was  seized  in 
prison  with  hunger,  before  he  could  escape;  he  fled  to  the  city 
of  Ashur,  for  mercy  he  laid  hold  of  the  king.  The  messenger 
of  the  crown  prince  he  sent  with  Mardi,  for  the  return  of  the 
lH.  1004;  117.  2tf.  594;  1004;  654;  10. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


399 


property  destroyed  by  the  governor  of  Barhalza.  But  Sirapa 
refuses  submission,  he  will  not  surrender  it,  for  he  says  that 
the  king  knows  how  this  man  of  Barhalza  hates  him  and  the 
orchards  he  will  not  permit  to  be  returned.1 

With  affairs  arranged  to  all  seeming  in  a  satisfactory  man¬ 
ner,  Esarhaddon  took  the  road  to  Egypt.  On  the  stele  which 
he  erected  in  the  outer  gate  of  the  northern  Judah  appear  the 
two  crown  princes,  Ashur-bani-apal  to  his  right,  Shamash- 
shum-ukin  to  left.  Each  folds  his  hands  in  the  attitude  of 
respect  usual  in  the  presence  of  a  superior,  but  each  bears  a 
smaller  edition  of  the  tiara.  Ashur-bani-apal  is  clothed  in  the 
same  royal  dress  as  his  father,  but  his  brother  wears  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  robe,  looped  fold  above  fold  as  did  his  predecessors  on 
the  throne  of  the  south.2 

Erection  of  the  stele  is  the  last  event  we  can  assign  to  Esar- 
haddon’s  reign,  for  in  November  of  669  he  died  on  the  road  to 
Egypt.  Again  we  have  from  Ashur-bani-apal  a  picture  of  mil¬ 
lennial  bliss:  “When  I  assumed  my  seat  on  the  throne  of  my 
father,  Adad  poured  out  his  rain-storms,  Ea  opened  his  springs, 
the  grain  grew  fifteen  inches  long,  it  increased,  the  cypresses 
were  always  green,  the  orchards  bore  their  fruit  in  rank  pro¬ 
fusion,  the  cattle  brought  forth  their  young  with  ease.  Dur- 
ing  my  period  of  rule,  fulness  rained  down;  during  my  years, 
abundance  was  heaped  up.”  3 

By  order  of  the  gods  Adad  brought  back  the  rains,  Ea  opened 
his  springs  and  made  richness,  blessing,  and  overflow  in  the 
land.  Ashur-bani-apal  gives  us  the  prices  which  prevailed  at 
his  accession;  if  we  may  accept  his  statistics,  the  shekel  did 
have  unusual  purchasing  power,  for  with  it  one  might  secure 
two  hundred  and  thirty-four  qa  of  grain,  two  hundred  and 
seventy  qa  of  dates,  sixty-six  qa  of  sesame,  eighteen  qa  of 
oil,  ten  pounds  of  wool,  while  as  for  wine,  which  was  pro¬ 
duced  on  the  mountain  tops  and  did  not  exist  in  Assyria, 

i  H.  916.  2  E.  Unger,  ZA.,  XXXI,  236. 

3  Transliteration  and  translation  of  all  official  sources  for  the  reign  in  M. 
Streck,  Assurbanipal,  with  full  bibliography,  introduction,  and  indexes;  the  cunei¬ 
form  sources  are  widely  scattered,  but  the  most  important  are  in  George  Smith, 
History  of  Assurbanipal ;  S.  A.  Smith,  Keilschrifttexte  Asurbanipals. 


400 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


eighteen  qa  also  sold  for  the  shekel.  Comparison  with  the 
average  range  of  prices  makes  it  clear  that  this  was  indeed 
low;  unfortunately,  those  same  business  documents  prove  that 
prices  soon  went  back  to  normal.1 

Nabu-shar-usur,  just  promoted  to  that  position  of  com¬ 
mander-in-chief,  which  he  was  to  hold  for  thirteen  years,  and 
blessed  with  a  grant  of  land  as  well,  rehearses  sentiments  typi¬ 
cal  of  those  who  had  gained  by  the  change:  “On  thy  throne 
thou  art  seated,  thine  enemies  thou  shalt  take  captive,  thy 
foes  thou  shalt  conquer,  the  enemy  lands  thou  shalt  despoil.’ ’ 
He  must  admit  that  there  are  enemies,  and  the  shadows  deepen 
as  he  confesses  that  the  whole  land  is  hostile  to  the  rule  of  his 
master. 

In  truth,  the  official  optimism  was  far  from  correct.  The 
death  of  a  ruler  away  from  the  capital  has  always  been  the  sig¬ 
nal  for  trouble  in  the  Orient,  and  this  was  no  exception.  The 
sons  of  Esarhaddon  were  young  their  position  was  anomalous, 
revolt  was  threatening. 

One  rebellion  seems  to  have  been  nipped  in  the  bud.  A  cer¬ 
tain  Sasi  was  the  “official  over  the  city,”  perhaps  of  Harran. 
Supporting  him  was  another  “official  over  the  city,”  Auiani, 
Bel-ahi-usur  of  Harran,  Ishtar-nadinat-apal,  the  scribe,  Arda, 
and  Nabu-etir.  Nusku  of  Harran  was  appealed  to  for  an 
oracle,  and  the  conspirators  were  informed:  “Royalty  is  for 
Sasi,  name  and  seed  of  Sennacherib  is  destroyed.”  News  of 
this  oracle  came  to  Ashur,  and  the  king  was  much  disturbed. 
An  appeal  to  Ningal  was  equally  disconcerting:  “Evil  for  thy 
soul  and  the  souls  of  thy  people,  from  father  to  mother,  all 
of  them  evil.”  Nabu-rihtu-usur  encourages  the  young  king. 
Bel  and  Nabu,  the  Ishtars  of  Nineveh  and  Arbela,  shall  grant 
him  long  days,  the  rebels  have  sinned  against  their  oath  to 
him,  it  is  their  name  and  their  seed  which  should  be  destroyed 
from  his  palace;  he  may  expect  the  punishment  of  those  who 
have  conspired  with  Sasi,  his  soul  shall  not  be  destroyed,  roy¬ 
alty  shall  not  be  taken  from  his  hands.  Let  there  be  an  in¬ 
vestigation.  The  shetu  official  has  brought  out  the  slave  girl 

1  Meissner,  OLZ.,  XXI,  119  ff. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


401 


of  Bel-ahi-usur;  from  the  house  of  Sasi;  let  her  be  put  to  the 
ordeal,  let  Bel-ahi-usur  be  brought  from  Harran,  let  the  rab 
mug  interrogate  his  family  under  the  gate  of  the  Nabu  tem¬ 
ple.  Let  the  paternal  uncles  of  the  king  be  on  guard,  let  the 
king  himself  remain  in  his  palace  and  save  his  life.1 

It  was  indeed  fortunate  that  there  was  one  strong  hand 
at  the  helm,  woman  though  she  was.  Sammuramat  gained 
eternal  fame  as  Semiramis,  but  Zakutu,  wife  of  Sennacherib, 
mother  of  Esarhaddon,  grandmother  of  the  young  princes, 
and  at  all  times  a  power,  was  in  actual  history  the  greatest  of 
Assyrian  queens.  In  the  emergency  she  came  forward  with  an 
oath  for  the  Assyrians,  for  Shamash-shum-ukin,  distinguished 
from  his  brothers  only  by  his  first  place,  for  Shamash-meta- 
uballit  and  his  younger  brothers,  for  the  seed  royal,  the  gov¬ 
ernors,  the  high  officials,  the  deputies,  the  magistrates,  the 
officials  of  the  whole  land,  the  Assyrian  people,  every  man  and 
woman.  Straight  to  the  point  she  comes:  “You  who  in  your 
heart  are  hostile  to  me,  you  who  counsel  and  discuss  a  wicked 
scheme,  a  treasonable  counsel,  you  who  speak  concerning  the 
raising  up  of  a  revolt  against  Ashur-bani-apal,  the  second  day 
concerning  the  murder  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  you  are  to  tell  me, 
his  mother,  and  likewise  Ashur-bani-apal,  whether  you  hear  it 
among  the  soldiers,  the  leading  fighting  men  of  your  midst,  or 
among  the  captains,  or  even  among  his  brethren.”  2 

Part  of  the  actual  oath  is  preserved:  “The  watch  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal,  king  of  Assyria,  our  lord,  shall  we  watch,  the  watch 
he  commands  we  shall  watch,  whoever  speaks  evil  words  against 
Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  Assyria,  or  against  one  of  his  offi¬ 
cials,  and  we  hear  it,  we  shall  place  him  in  fetters  and  Ashur- 
bani-apal,  from  this  day,  so  long  as  we  live,  will  we  love.  We 
will  not  make  war  against  his  land,  we  will  not  speak  evil,  the 
enemy  of  Ashur-bani-apal  shall  not  be  our  lord.  Whatever  he 
tells  us,  according  to  the  word  of  our  oath  we  shall  bring  our 
bows,  with  him  will  we  take  our  stand,  his  enemy  with  willing¬ 
ness  of  heart  we  will  cast  down.  Even  a  son  will  we  seize  and 
to  the  king  we  will  send  him.  Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  As- 
1 tf,  1217,  2  B,  1239, 


402 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


syria,  will  we  love,  his  enemies  will  we  hate,  from  this  day, 
so  long  as  we  live,  another  king  or  another  lord  opposed  to  him 
we  shall  not  seek,  a  letter  to  his  enemy  we  shall  not  send,  a 
messenger  from  another  land  we  shall  not  receive.  The  road 
for  his  feet  we  will  establish,  the  kingdom  of  Ashur  and  of 
Akkad  we  will  support  by  the  oath  of  the  gods.”  1 

The  scribes  of  Nineveh,  Kakzu,  and  Arbela,  so  Ishtar-shum- 
eresh  sends  word,  have  come  to  take  the  oath,  the  men  of 
Ashur  have  neglected  to  do  so.  If  it  please  the  king,  let  those 
who  are  already  there  take  it  at  once,  since  the  men  of  Nineveh 
and  Kalhu  are  kept  away  from  home.  Bel  and  Nabu  will 
enter  on  the  eighth  day.  Or  will  the  king  rather  say:  “Let 
them  come,  do  their  devoirs,  and  depart”  ?  Let  them  set  out 
on  the  fifteenth  day,  for  in  the  prayers  for  April  it  is  written: 
“On  the  fifteenth,  early  in  the  morning,  let  them  take  the 
oath,  on  the  night  of  the  fifteenth  under  the  stars  let  it  be  es¬ 
tablished.”  On  the  sixteenth  the  scribes,  seers,  magicians, 
physicians,  augurs,  the  companions  of  the  palace  and  the 
dwellers  in  the  city  will  take  the  oath.  The  twentieth, 
twenty-second,  and  twenty-fifth  are  suitable  for  establishing 
the  oath,  whenever  the  king  gives  orders,  they  will  be  made 
to  take  the  oath.  From  the  twenty-seventh  to  the  twenty- 
eighth,  according  to  the  king’s  orders,  they  are  to  reveal  the 
order  in  Arbela.  Esarhaddon  had  met  his  death  in  Novem¬ 
ber;  allowing  a  month  for  the  news  to  reach  Assyria,  three 
months  of  unrest  had  elapsed  before  it  was  safe  to  impose  the 
oaths.  2 

A  peculiar  situation  is  revealed  by  a  letter  of  Kabtia:  “As 
to  the  oath  of  Babylon,  as  to  which  the  king  has  sent,  I  did 
not  receive  the  sealed  letter  from  the  king  which  Ashur-ramin- 
sharri  brought  for  me.  Since  I  and  my  brothers  had  gone  into 
the  land  of  Arashu,  we  kept  the  guard  with  him.  At  the  time 
fixed  for  the  oath  at  Babylon,  I  could  not  reach  it.  On  the 
road  the  representative  of  the  palace  met  me,  and  when  he 
brought  me  into  Nippur  and  Uruk,  I  found  myself  in  the  midst 
of  thy  gods  and  the  ceremonies  of  taking  the  oath  to  the  king 
1H.  1105.  2R.  386;  33;  384;  35. 


HAREM  INTRIGUES  FOR  A  THRONE 


403 


my  lord.  But  I  was  not  content  to  take  the  oath  to  the  king 
there,  for  I  said:  Let  these  peoples,  their  sons  and  their  wives, 
take  the  oath  of  the  king,  I  shall  not  take  it ;  according  to  the 
orders  of  the  king  I  shall  take  it  when  the  elders  take  the  oath 
in  Babylon.’ ’  His  excuse  was  accepted  and  Kabtia  continued 
in  the  royal  service.1 

One  letter  furnishes  a  list  of  the  men  who  could  be  trusted 
in  the  crisis,  servants  who  would  not  revolt  against  their  lords, 
such  as  Balasu,  Bel-shar-usur,  Nabu-rimanni,  Adunu-milki, 
Pan  Nabu-lamur.  Ishtar  of  Arbela  came  to  the  aid  of  the 
youthful  Ashur-bani-apal,  as  she  had  done  to  his  father  before 
him:  “This  is  the  royal  order  of  the  Mistress:  Fear  thou  not, 
0  Ashur-bani-apal,  for  that  which  I  have  promised  will  I  do 
and  give  thee.  Surely  over  the  sons  of  the  four  tongues,  over 
the  protection  of  the  officials  shalt  thou  exercise  kingship. 
Thy  royalty  in  the  Succession  House  have  I  established,  the 
installation  dress  have  I  girded  on  thee.”  The  promised  aid 
was  not  forgotten  and  throughout  the  reign  Ishtar  of  Arbela 
was  of  even  higher  repute  than  in  the  days  of  Esarhaddon.2 

While  Ashur-bani-apal  prayed  to  Nabu,  Zakutu  made  her 
vows  to  his  wife  Tashmetum  and  dedicated  to  her  a  breast  of 
gleaming  red  gold  for  the  life  of  her  beloved  Ashur-bani-apal, 
for  the  enduring  of  his  throne,  and  for  herself,  her  own  life, 
the  length  of  her  days,  for  the  establishment  of  her  reign,  that 
she  might  make  the  king  her  husband  ( ! )  fortunate  by  her 
words,  so  that  the  goddess  might  make  them  grow  old  together.3 

The  true  wife  of  Ashur-bani-apal  was  likewise  a  lady  of 
strength.  Ashur-sharrat,  “the  city  of  Ashur  is  queen,”  ap¬ 
pears  twice  in  the  pictorial  record.  Once  she  is  represented  on 
a  stele  at  Ashur,  seated  on  a  throne,  her  right  hand  extended, 
in  her  left  a  flower,  a  battlemented  crown  on  her  head,  and 
wearing  armlets  and  decorated  earrings.4  The  other  is  the 
famous  drinking  scene.  In  both  she  is  not  unattractive  ac¬ 
cording  to  Eastern  notions — curly  hair,  ample  figure,  generous 
nose  over  slightly  overhanging  upper  lip,  arched  eyebrows, 


1 H.  202. 

3  J.  644  f. 


2  H.  875;  Strong,  BA.,  II,  633;  Jastrow,  Religion,  II,  171. 

4  Andrae,  Stelenreihen  in  Assur,  No.  1. 


404 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


smiling  mouth.  But  she  smiled  while  above  her  hung  the 
bleeding  head  of  an  Elamite  king ! 

She  too  had  known  trouble.  A  letter  written  just  before 
her  husband’s  accession  affords  a  peep  into  the  intrigues  and 
hatreds  of  the  women’s  quarters.  The  authoress  is  Sherua- 
eterat,  daughter  of  Esarhaddon,  and  she  sends  a  curt  “word 
of  the  king’s  daughter/’  as  if  she  were  herself  a  monarch.  She 
gives  Ashur-sharrat  no  title,  and  the  peace  greeting  is  con¬ 
spicuously  absent.  “Why  have  you  not  written  your  tablet 
or  dictated  your  letter?  Or  shall  men  say:  ‘Is  this  one  the 
mistress  of  Sherua-eterat,  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Succes¬ 
sion  House  of  Ashur-etil-ilani-ukinni,  the  great  king,  the 
mighty  king,  the  king  of  the  world,  the  king  of  Assyria  ’  ?  But 
you  are  only  a  daughter-in-law,  the  house  mistress  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal,  the  crown  prince  of  the  Succession  House,  son  of 
Esarhaddon,  king  of  Assyria.”1 

Sherua-eterat  is  own  daughter  to  the  reigning  king,  whom 
she  refers  to  by  his  new  name,  the  name  which  made  him 
rightful  successor  to  his  father;  the  mere  daughter-in-law  is 
connected  with  that  earlier  name  which  confessed  that  he  was 
not  the  first-born.  We  know  that  Ashur-sharrat  emerged 
triumphant  from  the  contest;  what  was  the  fate  of  her  oppo¬ 
nent? 


1  H.  308. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 


BROTHERLY  SETTLEMENTS 

The  energy  of  the  queen  mother  quelled  all  opposition,  and 
Ashur-bani-apal  was  safely  seated  on  his  throne.  The  com¬ 
mands  of  his  father,  by  whose  oath  that  could  not  be  broken 
he  was  bound,  might  now  be  carried  out  for  the  other  brothers. 
Esarhaddon  had  rebuilt  Babylon,  but  the  cult  statue  of  its 
divine  king  Marduk  still  languished  in  captivity.  Once  in¬ 
deed  he  had  thought  of  sending  it  back,  and  had  gone  so  far 
as  to  inquire  of  Shamash  whether  the  officer  whose  name  was 
written  on  the  tablet  should  be  sent  to  Babylon  to  Marduk, 
and  concerning  the  trip  from  Ashur  down  the  river  and  then 
across  to  the  city.1 

Marduk  was  still  a  captive  in  Ashur  at  the  death  of  Esar¬ 
haddon.  Ashur-bani-apal  appeared  before  him,  Marduk  filled 
his  hand,  and  the  king  solemnly  seized  the  girdle  of  the  god 
and  spoke  as  follows:  “ Think  on  Babylon,  which  in  the  wrath 
of  thy  heart  thou  didst  destroy,  to  Esagila,  the  temple  of  thy 
lordship,  turn  thy  neck  and  direct  thy  countenance.  Long 
enough  hast  thou  abandoned  thy  city,  a  place  which  is  not 
fitting  hast  thou  taken  as  thy  residence.  0  thou  Enlil  of  the 
gods,  do  thou,  0  Marduk,  order  the  march  to  Babylon;  through 
thy  illustrious  word,  without  rival,  establish  the  entering  into 
Esagila.” 

Not  content  with  this,  Shamash  was  asked  whether  Shamash- 
shum-ukin  might  go  through  the  ceremony  of  taking  the  hands 
of  Bel  before  the  statue  was  returned,  and  in  this  manner  se¬ 
cure  the  legal  right  to  rule  Babylonia.  Does  it  please  the  sun- 
god  and  Marduk  that  Shamash-shum-ukin  seize  the  hands  of 
Bel  in  the  city  of  Ashur,  and  then  go  before  the  face  of  Bel  to 
Babylon  ?2  Vassalage  to  Marduk  while  he  himself  was  a  vas¬ 
sal  to  Ashur  and  a  captive  of  twenty-one  long  years  in  the 
1  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  104,  106.  2  Ibid.,  149. 


405 


406 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


enemy’s  country  was  a  strange  travesty  of  the  ancient  custom, 
but  the  desires  of  princes  prevail  with  the  gods,  Shamash-shum- 
ukin  took  the  hands  of  Marduk  in  Ashur,  and  thus  counted  his 
first  official  year  from  the  March  of  668. 

Two  months  later  Marduk  began  his  journey  by  water  from 
the  city  of  Ashur.  Along  the  route  cattle  and  lambs  were 
slaughtered,  spices  were  scattered,  heaps  of  wood  were  fired 
which  gave  light  for  an  hour’s  distance.  The  whole  body  of 
Assyrian  troops  surrounded  the  god  like  a  rainbow;  day  and 
night  there  was  music. 

Arrived  in  Babylon,  the  Abode  of  Life,  Marduk  found  await¬ 
ing  him  on  the  shore  his  wife,  the  Mistress  of  Akkad,  Nana, 
Usur-amatsu,  Hanibia,  and  Adanissi.  Nergal  came  from  his 
temple  of  Eshitlam  in  Kutu,  Nabu  followed  the  continuation 
of  the  sacred  way  from  Borsippa  to  meet  his  father,  Shamash 
approached  from  his  gleaming  home  in  Sippar.  All  the  gods 
of  Shumer  and  Akkad  bowed  before  him  in  humility,  like 
whimpering  puppies.  The  ceremonies  of  the  mouth-washing 
were  completed,  and  sheep,  oxen,  and  fish,  the  abundance  of 
the  sea,  were  offered. 

His  other  brothers  next  received  attention.  After  Ashur- 
bani-apal  came  Ashur-mukin-palea,  “  Ashur  has  established  my 
rule.”  Already  Esarhaddon  had  been  troubled  by  his  health, 
he  had  said  to  the  physician  Arad  Nana,  “He  is  in  your 
hands,”  he  was  disturbed  whenever  the  face  of  his  son  became 
pale.  Arad  Nana  is  with  him  and  takes  care  of  him,  but  the 
beginning  of  the  month  is  unpropitious  for  performing  rites, 
and  the  physician  plaintively  demands  of  his  master  whether 
he  should  die  in  performing  them.  The  king  need  not  be 
anxious  about  the  health  of  his  tooth;  Arad  Nana  has  much 
improved  it.1 

It  is  exceedingly  well  with  Ashur-mukin-palea  and  Ashur- 
sharrani.  The  ceremonies  about  which  the  king  made  in¬ 
quiry  were  carried  out  in  December,  they  recited  the  series 
“Sickness  and  death  shall  not  come  to  the  palace,”  also  the 
series  “Sickness  and  pestilence  shall  not  come  to  the  house  of 

1 H.  109. 


BROTHERLY  SETTLEMENTS 


407 


a  man/’  as  well  as  many  freeing  incantations.  In  February 
there  will  be  lifting  up  of  the  hand,  prayers  and  incantations 
against  evil,  witchcraft,  pestilence,  and  sorcery.  The  cere¬ 
monies  carried  out  in  March  include  the  images  of  Anu,  of 
Nam  tar,  of  Latarak,  of  death,  the  image  of  a  man  in  clay,  the 
image  of  a  man  in  mud  from  the  garden  canal,  seven  loaves  of 
barley,  fifteen  blades  of  silver,  before  Gula,  mistress  of  the 
waste  fields,  seven  barleycorns  of  silver,  and  seven  of  gold,  of 
bronze,  of  lead,  and  of  iron  from  the  city  to  the  river,  seven 
staffs  of  tamarisk,  of  palm,  seven  jars  of  wine,  seven  jars  of 
beer,  seven  jars  of  milk,  seven  jars  of  honey.1 

An  altar  will  be  placed  on  the  16th  of  September,  before 
the  god  Sin  they  will  make  ready,  incense  and  cypress  for 
Zaqar,  the  god  of  dreams,  will  be  placed  at  the  head  of  his  bed. 
With  kidrusha  and  qulqulani  plants  his  hands  and  feet  will  be 
washed.  A  lump  of  salt,  qulqulani  plants,  cypress,  earth,  be¬ 
fore  the  door  in  his  belt  shall  be  placed,  his  head  will  be  lifted 
up.  Since  he  is  not  weak,  as  long  as  Ashur  and  Nabu,  the 
king’s  gods,  reckon  him  with  living  men,  they  will  not  cease 
to  carry  out  the  ritual  for  his  welfare.2 

Orders  are  transmitted  to  Nabu-ahe-eriba  that  Ashur-mukin- 
palea  should  enter  the  royal  presence  on  the  1st  of  the  month. 
He  will  come  when  Venus  shines  forth;  just  now  it  appeared 
at  sunset  and  remains  fixed.  Lie  quotes  the  omen:  “The  hired 
servant  will  increase,  he  will  be  perfected,  he  will  arrive.” 
The  king  has  inquired  of  Adad-shum-usur  as  to  the  welfare  of 
Ashur-mukin-palea  and  has  ordered  that  he  come  quickly  with 
him  and  with  twenty  men  appear  before  his  face.  The  month 
of  August  is  favourable,  its  favourable  days  are  many.  He 
lifts  up  his  feet  on  high,  he  dances  with  joy.  It  is  exceedingly 
favourable  to  enter  the  royal  presence.  Favourable  for  the 
journey  is  the  2d,  the  4th  is  very  propitious.  Shortly  after, 
Ashur-mukin-palea  was  on  his  way  to  the  ancient  city  of 
Ashur,  where  he  was  to  be  “marked”  as  an  urigallu  priest. 
Serving  thus  his  “father,”  he  survived  for  at  least  twenty  years 
when  his  property  is  found  listed.3 

1 H.  977.  2  H.  450. 


3  H.  82;  652;  77. 


408 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Another  brother,  a  sickly  youth  of  five  years  with  the  un¬ 
wieldy  name  of  Ashur-etil-shame-ersiti-uballitsu,  “Ashur,  lord 
of  heaven  and  earth,  keep  him  alive/’  was  given  the  same 
priestly  position  before  the  Sin  who  dwells  in  Harran.  An 
older  brother,  also  sickly  if  we  may  trust  the  evidence  of  his 
name,  Shamash-meta-uballit,  “Shamash  causes  the  dead  to 
live,”  appears  in  two  earlier  letters.  In  one  he  writes  that 
the  royal  maid  servant,  Bau-gamelat,  is  very  sick,  she  eats  no 
food,  may  the  king  order  that  a  physician  come  and  examine 
her.  He  has  gone  into  the  district  of  Nineveh,  the  bricks  are 
in  place  in  the  royal  guard-house,  the  chariot  of  cypress  is 
broken  and  ruined,  let  the  king  send  word  that  it  be  repaired. 
He  appears  no  more  in  history,  and  the  reference  to  him  by 
Zakutu  makes  it  not  improbable  that  he  was  unwilling  to 
accept  the  lowly  position  of  his  brothers  and  paid  for  his  re¬ 
fusal  with  his  life.1 

His  brothers  settled,  Ashur-bani-apal  turned  his  attention 
to  the  case  of  the  higher  officials.  The  danger  incurred  by 
Adad-shum-usur  in  his  protests  against  the  division  of  the 
kingdom  might  now  hope  for  reward.  He  hastened  to  greet 
his  new  monarch  in  language  which  closely  followed  the  phrase¬ 
ology  of  the  claims  of  millennial  bliss  formulated  by  Ashur- 
bani-apal  himself. 

“The  king  of  the  gods  has  proclaimed  the  name  of  the  king 
my  lord  for  the  dominion  of  the  Assyrian  land.  Shamash  and 
Adad,  because  of  their  steadfast  regard  for  the  dominion  of 
the  lands  of  the  king  my  lord,  have  established  a  gracious 
reign,  ordered  days,  years  of  righteousness,  abundant  rains, 
copious  inundations,  fair  prices.  The  gods  are  revered,  the 
fear  of  God  is  strong,  the  temples  flourish.  The  great  gods  of 
heaven  and  earth  are  kindly  disposed  towards  the  king  my 
lord.  The  old  men  dance,  the  young  men  sing,  the  maids  and 
matrons  are  gaily  decked.  They  take  in  marriage  the  women 
and  embrace  them ;  reproduction  is  blessed.  To  those  who  have 
sinned  and  looked  for  death,  the  king  has  given  new  life;  those 
who  were  long  captive,  thou  hast  set  free.  Those  who  were 

1ff.  228;  658;  341;  766. 


BROTHERLY  SETTLEMENTS 


409 


many  days  ill  have  been  restored  to  health.  The  hungry  are 
satisfied,  the  lean  grow  fat,  the  naked  are  covered  with  clothing. 

“But  in  all  this  rejoicing,  only  I  and  my  son  Arad  Gula  are 
downcast  in  heart  and  disturbed  in  soul.  Since  of  late  the 
king  has  shown  his  love  for  Nineveh  and  his  people,  in  that  he 
has  given  orders  to  his  nobles :  ‘  Bring  your  sons,  let  them  stand 
before  me/  permit  also  that  my  son  Arad  Gula  stand  with 
them  before  my  lord  the  king.  Then,  with  the  rest  of  the 
people,  we  too  shall  rejoice  and  dance  for  joy.  My  eyes  are 
fixed  on  the  king  my  lord,  for  there  is  not  a  man  among  those 
in  the  palace  who  loves  me;  there  is  not  even  a  friend  to  whom 
I  might  give  a  ‘gift’  and  who  would  receive  it  and  take  up  my 
cause.  So  let  the  king  have  pity  on  his  servant  and  may 
none  of  my  slanderers  among  all  the  people  see  the  desire  of 
his  heart  upon  me.”  1 

As  for  Arad  Gula,  no  one  has  considered  him,  he  is  dying 
of  a  broken  heart.  To  lay  hold  of  the  king’s  hand  was  his 
hope,  since  the  king  has  been  to  many  people  a  restorer  of 
life.  May  he  himself  see  the  king’s  face  among  those  who  are 
acceptable.  Alas,  he  is  dying  for  lack  of  food,  he  begs  like  a 
dog,  hitherto  he  has  not  been  negligent.  There  is  not  a  maid 
servant  nor  a  man  servant  with  him,  he  is  submissive.2 

Ashur-bani-apal  replied  most  graciously:  “May  Ashur,  Sha- 
mash,  and  all  my  gods  hearken  to  this  message,  including  all 
that  you  have  written.  I  have  heard  from  the  mouth  of  my 
family  that  ye  are  a  trustworthy  family,  but  now  I  know  it 
for  myself  and  I  have  seen  it.”  Adad-shum-usur  was  now  an 
old  man  and  the  king  provided  an  assistant  in  the  person  of 
Marduk-shakin-shum,  softening  the  blow  by  “look  upon  this 
as  a  mark  of  kindness,  since  I  myself  consider  it  a  mark  of 
grace.”  Adad-shum-usur  cannot  restrain  his  enthusiasm: 
“The  father  of  my  lord  king  was  the  very  image  of  Bel,  and 
my  lord  king  is  the  very  image  of  Bel  also.  By  the  word  of 
two  such  lords  of  peoples,  whoever  established  or  altered  or 
will  attain  such  favour  ?  Since  the  king  has  collected  us  and 
made  us  to  stand  in  his  presence,  may  all  the  great  gods  of 

2  H.  657;  659. 


1H.  2. 


410 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


heaven  and  earth  make  them  to  come  to  the  king  my  lord 
together  with  his  seed,  his  name,  and  his  offspring.  In  their 
families  may  they  cause  them  to  enter  as  long  as  Sin  and 
Shamash  are  established  in  the  heavens.  With  us  may  thy 
heirs  rule  the  land  of  Assyria  forever,  and  as  for  us,  as  long  as 
our  family  exists,  we  shall  continue  to  pray  for  the  life  and 
welfare  of  the  king,  and  may  his  old  age  endure  unto  the  days 
of  our  grandchildren.”  He  has  no  feeling  of  injury  because 
Marduk-shakin-shum  has  been  made  his  assistant,  rather 
“may  god  and  man  requite  the  kindness  of  the  king  a  thou¬ 
sandfold.  Let  him  assist  me  this  very  day,  I  shall  regard  him 
as  a  helper  in  this  kindness  which  I  have  received  from  the 
king  my  lord.”  1 

The  enthusiasm  of  Adad-shum-usur  for  his  new  lord  showed 
no  sign  of  abatement,  and  the  succeeding  letters  present  the 
acme  of  courtly  let  ter- writing.  “Like  the  Sun  God  and  the 
Moon  God  in  the  heavens,  the  dominion  of  the  king  my  lord 
is  established,  may  his  offspring  be  established  over  all  the 
lands.  May  they  bring  the  riches  of  the  land  of  Assyria  and 
of  the  land  of  Akkad  and  of  all  their  lands  to  the  king  my  lord. 
May  they  assure  him  health  of  mind  and  body,  cheerfulness 
of  spirit,  an  old  age  of  distant  days,  age-long  perpetuation  of 
reign,  extensive  increase  of  descendants,  and  firm  establish¬ 
ment  of  offspring.2 

“May  the  great  gods  whose  names  the  king  has  written 
down  permit  the  king  my  lord  to  behold  the  fruits  of  his  labour, 
because  of  that  word  and  that  commendation  which  the  king 
pronounced  and  sent  to  his  dog,  his  slave,  the  ancient  servitor 
of  his  house.”  He  will  pray  that  mighty  lands  may  be  a  gift 
to  the  king,  and  it  will  be  his  task,  morning  and  evening,  to 
beseech  the  gods  for  the  welfare  of  the  king  and  of  his  sons, 
for  perpetuation  of  his  name,  that  a  thousand  times  a  thou¬ 
sand  years’  health  of  mind  and  of  body  shall  be  their  gift  to 
the  king.  For  now  he  knows  that  the  wisdom  of  Ea  and  Mar- 
duk  and  the  work  of  his  servant’s  hands  shall  prosper  because 
of  the  commendation  which  the  king  sent  to  his  servant.3 

1 H.  6.  2  H.  7.  3  H.  9. 


BROTHERLY  SETTLEMENTS 


411 


He  has  received  word  from  the  king:  “May  thy  heart  be 
good,  may  thy  gums  not  be  shortened  with  hunger.”  For  this 
good  deed,  which  before  gods  and  men  is  pleasing,  Adad-shum- 
usur  will  satisfy  his  appetite,  he  will  summon  his  courage,  since 
the  king  has  acted  towards  his  servants  as  a  father  to  his  chil¬ 
dren.  “Since  men  lived,  what  king  has  shown  such  grace  to 
his  servants  and  where  is  there  a  friend  who  has  returned  good 
to  his  friend  like  this?  May  the  great  gods  of  heaven  and 
earth  requite  this  generous  act  to  his  descendants  as  long  as 
heaven  and  earth  endure.  When  I  heard  and  saw  this  good 
word,  this  deed  of  grace,  which  the  king  did,  my  heart  was 
joyous,  it  lived  again.  Many  cattle  are  in  my  possession,  for 
sacrifices  I  have  vowed  them.  Through  the  long  life  of  the 
king  my  lord,  as  I  grow  old  in  the  service  of  the  king  and  as  I 
am  true  to  the  king,  may  I  die  the  appointed  death,  may  the 
king  heap  up  my  funeral  pile  and  place  me  in  the  mound,  may 
he  set  it  up.  To  my  sons  in  like  fashion  may  the  king  give 
orders,  may  he  outlive  their  grandchildren. 

“As  to  what  the  king  has  declared:  ‘Thou,  the  sons  of  thy 
brothers,  the  sons  of  the  brothers  of  thy  fathers  have  I  col¬ 
lected,  before  me  shall  they  stand/  so  may  Ashur  and  his 
family,  Bel  and  Nabu  with  their  families,  the  great  gods  of 
heaven  and  earth,  every  one  of  them,  may  they  collect  name, 
seed,  descendant,  sprout,  seed  of  the  womb,  of  the  king,  before 
their  eyes  may  they  make  them  to  stand,  so  long  as  heaven 
and  earth  endure,  may  they  be  rulers  of  all  lands,  as  gracious, 
as  good,  as  dignified,  as  orderly,  as  faithful.  Because  of  what 
the  king  has  done,  may  the  king  my  lord  prepare  and  execute 
a  decorated  monument  in  the  form  of  a  sealed  document  for 
preserving  it  in  its  completeness.”  1 

The  royal  family  had  by  now  reached  that  period  in  its  de¬ 
cline  where  physical  degeneracy  had  set  in.  The  younger  sons 
showed  by  their  very  names  their  sickly  physique.  We  find 
Ashur-bani-apal  before  his  accession  praying  aid  for  his  father 
and  for  himself,  that  the  disease  causing  hand  of  god  or  god¬ 
dess  be  removed,  that  health  return  to  himself,  and  so  frail 

1 H.  358. 


412 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


did  he  remain  that  after  he  became  king  he  must  again  inquire 
whether  he  would  recover  from  his  sore  sickness.1 

A  sick-room  atmosphere  fills  the  letters.  The  crown  prince, 
Ashur-bani-apal,  has  the  fever,  the  god  is  angry  because  of  the 
king’s  sin,  let  the  king  make  his  prayers  of  supplication  in  that 
day.  The  physician  will  make  a  substitute  image  in  human 
form  for  the  crown  prince,  with  a  view  of  thus  deceiving  Eresh- 
kigal,  the  goddess  of  the  dead.  Shamash-shum-ukin,  however, 
is  well,  he  is  in  no  need  of  medical  attention.2 

Ikkaru  has  sent  the  king  ointment,  tarpa  wood,  and  a  third 
of  a  hundred  vessels  of  drink.  Whether  they  brought  them  to 
the  king  he  does  not  know,  he  has  seen  no  reply  to  his  letter, 
nor  has  he  heard  of  the  welfare  of  the  king.  Shamash-shum- 
ukin  is  well.  From  the  22d  day  he  shall  give  the  blood  of 
drinking,  three  days  shall  he  drink  it,  and  three  are  also  the 
days  he  prescribes  for  the  palace.  Bel,  Nabu,  and  the  Mis¬ 
tress  of  Life  care  for  the  life  of  Shamash-shum-ukin.3 

Arad  Nana  reports  that  it  is  very  well  with  the  crown  prince. 
The  day  he  came,  he  tarried,  he  gained  strength,  he  remained 
until  he  had  completed  the  month.  The  service  performed  for 
him  is  worth  five-sixths  of  a  shekel  of  silver,  an  inexpensive 
enough  treatment  for  one  who  was  almost  king.  It  is  not  so 
well  with  another  patient  who  had  a  bad  nose-bleed.  Yester¬ 
day,  before  evening,  so  the  rab  mug  reported,  there  was  a 
severe  hemorrhage.  Arad  Nana  insists  that  the  dressings  are 
not  properly  applied,  since  they  are  placed  over  the  nostrils; 
they  thus  obstruct  the  breathing  and  come  off  when  the  bleed¬ 
ing  begins.  They  should  be  placed  within  the  nostril;  then  the 
air  will  be  kept  out  and  the  bleeding  will  cease.  To-morrow 
he  will  come  in  person  and  give  further  instructions;  in  the 
meantime,  he  begs  word  of  the  patient’s  condition.4 

The  queen  mother  Zakutu  is  well,  but  there  is  question  of 
the  food  being  properly  boiled.  Another  unfortunate  suffered 
from  the  same  diseased  eyes  which  are  such  an  infliction  in 
the  modern  Orient.  Arad  Nana  removed  the  bandage  yes- 

1  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  116  f.;  108  f.;  143  f.;  147  f.;  Klauber,  Texte,  49. 

2  H.  439.  3  H .  740.  4  H  108. 


BROTHERLY  SETTLEMENTS 


413 


terday  towards  evening;  there  was  pus  upon  it  the  size  of  the 
tip  of  the  little  finger.  Whoever  of  the  gods  put  his  hand  to 
the  case  has  surely  given  his  orders;  in  seven  or  eight  days  he 
should  be  well.1 

Continually  the  king  has  been  asking  why  Arad  Nana  has 
not  made  clear  his  disease  and  cured  him.  Now  he  has  sent 
a  sealed  letter  which  he  hopes  they  will  read  before  the  king. 
He  will  make  prescription:  let  the  ceremonies  be  carried  out 
by  a  seer,  let  them  bathe  the  king  and  straightway  the  fever 
will  depart  from  the  face  of  the  king;  let  them  apply  to  him 
oil  two  or  three  times.  There  is  infection  in  the  pus,  let  them 
bring  licorice  before  the  king,  as  they  have  done  twice  already, 
let  them  rub  it  in  vigorously,  then  he  will  come  and  give  fur¬ 
ther  instructions.  At  once  the  strength  of  the  king  will  revive, 
in  the  midst  of  the  full  tide  to  the  king  he  will  bring.  The 
king  shall  place  on  his  neck  the  salve  he  will  send,  on  the  ap¬ 
pointed  day  let  the  king  be  anointed.  He  will  speak  the  truth 
with  the  king  as  the  king  demanded;  the  pain  in  his  head,  his 
sides,  and  his  feet  has  come  from  his  teeth,  they  must  be 
extracted.  Many  a  present-day  physician  has  made  the  diag¬ 
nosis  !  The  prescription  for  another  malady  is  equally  mod¬ 
ern — complete  rest.  Let  the  king  also  anoint  himself  on  ac¬ 
count  of  the  wind,  let  him  make  incantation  over  the  pure 
waters  in  the  bowl  in  which  he  washes  his  hands,  let  him  not 
pour  it  out,  then  the  sickness  will  quickly  pass  away.  Hy¬ 
giene  for  the  disease,  bread  pills  for  the  imagination  have  been 
anticipated.2 

After  he  became  king,  Ashur-bani-apal  anxiously  asks  Mar- 
duk-shakin-shum  about  the  incantations  beginning  “Art  thou 
the  evil  spirit?” — for  he  desires  to  drive  out  the  evil  spirit  and 
the  “one  who  falls  from  heaven.”  The  magicians  are  to  per¬ 
form  the  rites  according  to  whatever  has  attacked  him.  The 
magician  shall  approach  the  path,  he  shall  hang  a  cuckoo  on 
the  door-post.  He  shall  put  on  red  garments,  the  emblem  of 
death,  a  red  bird  he  shall  carry,  a  raven  on  his  right  shall  stand, 
a  falcon  on  his  left;  the  bars  of  the  seven  gates  of  the  under- 


414 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


world  he  shall  lay  upon  them.  He  shall  smite  the  patient 
with  the  lash,  he  shall  recite  the  incantation:  “Art  thou  the 
evil  spirit?”  He  shall  cause  his  deputy  to  go  around  the  bed 
of  the  patient  with  censer  and  torch.  He  shall  recite  the  in¬ 
cantation  “Go  forth!”  as  far  as  the  gate;  the  gate  itself  he 
shall  bewitch.  Morning  and  evening  he  shall  perform  the  rites 
until  the  demons  have  been  driven  forth.1 

Inquiry  is  made  about  a  fever.  Marduk-shakin-shum  re¬ 
plies  that  he  is  the  one  who  loosens,  let  him  come  to  the  king 
and  he  will  make  the  proper  incantations.  Bel  and  Nabu  will 
lay  life-giving  hands  upon  him.  Then  comes  the  cold  period 
of  the  fever  and  the  king  again  makes  inquiry.  He  is  reas¬ 
sured;  there  is  no  guilt  and  the  gods  will  soon  loosen  the 
curse.2 

Ashur-bani-apal  now  found  time  to  restore  the  customary 
sacrifices  for  the  dead,  and  especially  for  the  spirits  of  former 
kings,  which  had  been  allowed  to  fall  into  disuse.  Thus  he 
had  done  good  for  God  and  man,  for  dead  and  for  living,  yet 
is  this  cry  forced  from  his  lips:  “Why  has  sickness,  woe  of 
heart,  misery  and  destruction  bound  me?  In  the  land  is  bat¬ 
tle,  in  the  house  is  intrigue;  they  are  never  taken  from  my 
side.  Destruction  and  an  evil  word  are  lined  up  against  me; 
ill  of  heart  and  ill  of  body  have  bowed  down  my  form.  With 
‘ Alack’  and  ‘Alas’  I  end  my  day;  on  the  day  of  the  city  god, 
the  feast-day,  I  am  destroyed.  Death  is  bringing  upon  me 
my  end,  I  am  oppressed;  in  want  and  sorrow  I  grieve  day  and 
night.  I  wail:  ‘O  God,  give  this  to  those  who  do  not  fear  the 
gods;  may  I  see  thy  light!  How  long,  O  God,  wilt  thou  do 
this  unto  me?  As  one  who  fears  not  god  or  goddess  have  I 
been  afflicted.’”  Far  indeed  is  this  from  the  hero,  mighty  in 
strength  through  Urta  and  Nergal,  who  brought  in  the  mil¬ 
lennial  dawn ! 


1 H.  24. 


2  H.  664;  663. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 

Egypt  and  its  problems  remained  as  a  legacy  from  his 
father.  “The  kings  of  the  lands  spake  one  with  another: 
‘Come,  let  us  go  against  Ashur-bani-apal;  he  brought  their 
fate  upon  our  fathers  and  our  fathers’  fathers,  let  not  his  might 
restrain  us  also.’”  To  this  threat  Ishtar  of  Arbela  made  an¬ 
swer:  “The  kings  of  the  lands  will  I  overthrow,  will  place 
under  the  yoke,  will  bind  their  feet  with  strong  fetters.  A 
second  time  do  I  tell  you.  As  with  the  Elamites  and  the 
Cimmerians,  I  will  arise,  the  thorns  I  will  break,  the  thorny 
plants  will  I  open  a  way  through.  I  will  fill  the  land  with 
blood,  will  turn  it  into  a  desert  with  weeping  and  wailing. 
Dost  thou  ask:  ‘Where  shall  be  weeping  and  wailing?’  Weep¬ 
ing  has  entered  Egypt,  wailing  has  come  out  therefrom.  The 
Mistress  is  thy  mother,  fear  thou  not;  the  Lady  of  Arbela  is 
she  that  bare  thee,  fear  thou  not.  As  she  that  beareth  cares 
for  her  child,  so  care  I  for  thee;  as  an  amulet  in  the  form  of  a 
hand,  carry  I  thee  between  my  breasts.  In  the  night  stretch 
I  a  covering  over  thee;  all  day  long  care  I  for  thy  covering. 
In  the  morning  I  care  for  thy  prayer,  I  care  for  thy  deed. 
Fear  thou  not,  my  little  son,  whom  I  have  made  great.”  1 

A  whole  group  of  gods  lends  encouragement  through  Mar- 
duk-shum-usur.  Sin  and  Shamash  will  grant  the  new  king 
health,  Nabu  and  Marduk  will  bestow  fame  and  offspring,  the 
Mistress  of  Nineveh  and  Ishtar  of  Arbela  will  protect  him  like 
a  mother  or  sister.  He  reminds  Ashur-bani-apal  how  Ashur 
spoke  in  a  dream  to  his  grandfather,  Sennacherib  the  wise: 
“0  king,  lord  of  kings,  offspring  of  the  wise  and  of  Adapa, 
thou  hast  surpassed  the  wisdom  of  Apsu  and  of  all  the  wise 
men.”  He  adds  for  full  measure  the  story  of  how  Esarhaddon 
was  promised  conquest  of  Egypt  by  Sin  of  Harran,  and  of  how 
he  marched  forth  in  the  confidence  of  this  prediction  and  did 

1  Strong,  BA.,  II,  633;  Jastrow,  Religion,  II,  171. 

415 


416 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


indeed  conquer  Egypt.  The  other  lands  which  have  not  yet 
submitted  to  Ashur  and  Sin  will  likewise  be  reduced  by  the 
king,  the  lord  of  kings.  With  the  help  of  the  twelve  gods  he 
shall  reign  a  thousand  years,  till  he  stand  an  old  man.1 

Soon  after,  the  troops  in  Egypt  did  succeed  in  defeating  the 
rebels,  and  two  out  of  the  three  leaders  were  taken  alive. 
Brought  in  chains  to  the  court,  Sharru-ludari  promptly  dis¬ 
appeared,  but  Necho  was  forgiven.  The  treaty  concluded 
with  him  was  on  much  stiffer  terms  than  before,  but  he  was 
presented  with  coloured  dresses,  golden  necklaces,  bracelets,  an 
iron  sword  with  the  royal  name  inlaid  in  gold,  chariots  and 
horses  and  mules.  He  was  returned  to  Kar-bel-matati,  “the 
Fort  of  the  Lord  of  Lands,”  the  Assyrian  name  for  Sais,  and 
with  him  went  an  Assyrian  governor,  “for  a  support  to  him,” 
ironically  remarks  Ashur-bani-apal.  His  son  Psammetichus 
was  likewise  given  an  Assyrian  name,  Nabu-shezibanni,  and 
was  granted  a  position  of  equality  with  his  father  as  ruler  of 
Athribis,  now  called  by  the  clumsy  name  of  Limir-ishakku 
Ashur,  “may  the  patesi  of  Ashur  be  illustrious.” 

Taharka  died  in  663,  shortly  after  associating  his  nephew 
Tanutamon,  the  son  of  Shabaka.  Informed  by  a  dream  that 
he  was  to  rule  both  north  and  south  Egypt,  Tanutamon  ad¬ 
vanced  to  Memphis,  drove  out  the  Assyrians,  and  forced  their 
supporters  to  sue  for  peace.  Necho  died,  and  his  son  took 
refuge  within  the  Assyrian  lines  in  Syria.  Assyrian  rule  was 
confined  to  the  Delta,  and  even  here  a  raid  by  the  Ethiopian 
brought  in  a  certain  number  of  princes  ready  to  place  them¬ 
selves  on  what  they  thought  the  winning  side.2 

As  soon  as  the  troubles  with  the  Elamite  Urtaku  were  com¬ 
posed,  the  Assyrians  returned.  Memphis  was  retaken,  and 
then,  after  a  march  of  a  month  and  ten  days,  Thebes  as  well. 
Great  was  the  plunder,  gold  and  silver,  the  “dirt  of  his  land,” 
precious  stones,  cloths,  great  horses,  apes  of  various  kinds, 
the  products  of  the  Egyptian  highlands.  The  later  editions 
of  the  official  history  add  two  high  obelisks  of  gleaming  electron 
of  a  weight  of  2,500  talents,  which  once  formed  the  door-posts 
of  the  temple  entrance. 

1 H.  923. 


2  Breasted,  Records ,  IV,  467  ff. 


Fig.  147.  THE  ACROPOLIS  AT  SARDIS. 
(The  Pactolus,  “River  of  Gold,”  in  foreground.) 


Fig.  148.  VIEW  FROM  THE  ACROPOLIS  OF  SARDIS 
(The  burial  mounds  of  the  Lydian  kings  in  the  distance.) 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 


417 


The  sack  of  Thebes  produced  utter  stupefaction.  Immor¬ 
tal  form  to  this  feeling  was  given  by  the  Jewish  prophet  Nahum 
when  fell  “No  Ammon,  that  was  situate  among  the  rivers,  that 
had  the  waves  about  her,  whose  rampart  was  the  Water,  and 
her  wall  was  the  Sea.  Ethiopia  was  her  strength  and  Egypt 
also,  it  had  no  limit;  Punt  and  the  Libyans  were  her  helpers. 
Yet  she  was  carried  away,  she  went  into  captivity;  her  young 
children  were  dashed  in  pieces  at  the  head  of  all  her  streets, 
for  her  honorable  men  they  cast  lots,  and  all  her  nobles  were 
bound  in  chains.”  1 

The  fall  of  Thebes  marked  the  end  of  the  Ethiopian  domi¬ 
nation  of  Egypt,  but  the  Assyrians  enjoyed  small  reward  for 
their  toil.  Psammetichus  returned  and  began  to  consolidate 
his  position.  Signs  of  what  was  coming  were  not  infrequent. 
Thus,  for  example,  Ashipa,  the  Assyrian  officer  in  charge  of 
the  Arabs  on  the  Syrian  frontier,  complained  to  the  king  about 
Nabu-shezibanni,  as  Psammetichus  was  still  called;  Ashur- 
bani-apal  was  powerless  to  take  action,  and  could  only  assert 
that  he  was  the  dog  of  the  king.2  Later  Ashur-bani-apal  tells 
us  how  Gyges  of  Lydia  sinned  in  sending  aid  to  the  Egyptian 
ruler,  but  no  casual  reader  would  dream  that  the  Pishamilki 
of  this  passage  is  the  Nabu-shezibanni  who  is  listed  not  many 
lines  before  as  an  Egyptian  subject  king.  A  third  time  he 
appears,  as  a  supporter  of  the  revolted  Shamash-shum-ukin, 
but  again  he  is  disguised,  for  his  title  is  “King  of  Meluhha,” 
which  by  this  time  had  come  to  be  equivalent  for  Ethiopia. 
Psammetichus,  however,  was  now  king  of  all  Egypt,  and 
counted  the  beginning  of  his  reign  from  6G3,  the  date  of  Ta- 
harka’s  death. 

Our  royal  historian  inserts  a  passage  about  667  which  tells 
how  Ikkilu,  king  of  Arvad,  who  had  dwelt  safe  in  his  island  in 
the  midst  of  the  sea,  like  an  immense  fish,  and  had  gone  up 
to  the  great  sea,  refusing  to  accept  the  Assyrian  yoke,  suddenly 
became  submissive  and  promised  to  pay  the  yearly  tribute  of 
gold,  purple,  fish,  and  birds  his  suzerain  demanded. 

Decidedly  different  is  the  picture  drawn  by  the  Assyrian 
fiscal  agent,  Itti  Shamash-balatu,  whose  troubles  are  described 

1  Nahum  3  :  8  ff.  2  H.  298. 


418 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


in  a  confidential  despatch.  His  station  was  at  the  “  Assyrian 
Harbour/’  known  as  Amurru  when  it  gave  its  name  to  all  Syria 
and  Mesopotamia,  for  the  island  was  forbidden  ground  to  him. 
“The  king  my  lord  knows  that  Ikkilu  will  not  let  go  the  ships, 
that  they  cannot  come  to  anchor  at  the  wharf  of  the  king  my 
lord.  Every  wharf  he  takes  for  himself.  Whoever  comes  to 
him,  he  establishes  his  feet;  whoever  comes  to  the  wharf  of  the 
land  of  Assyria  he  kills,  his  ship  he  destroys,  for  he  says:  ‘They 
have  sent  from  the  palace.’”  Some  official  is  now  in  Simirra, 
he  will  go  to  Assyria,  whatever  the  obstacles  he  will  investi¬ 
gate  the  report  and  have  speech  with  him.  The  king  will  at 
once  ask:  “Why  did  you  not  seize  him?”  He  fears  because 
of  the  king’s  father  and  cannot  seize  him.  The  king  should 
know  that  there  are  many,  even  of  the  King’s  Companions, 
who  gave  money  to  this  house;  they  fear  as  do  the  merchants, 
but  he  trusts  only  the  king.  Not  a  shekel,  not  a  half-shekel, 
has  he  given  to  any  one,  to  the  king  he  has  given  it,  for  the 
king  restored  him  to  life  from  a  thousand  deaths  when  he  was 
a  dead  dog;  therefore,  the  king  is  his  god.1 

From  this  secret  despatch  we  realise  how  small  was  the 
authority  of  the  Assyrians  over  these  Phoenician  cities,  when 
the  highest  nobles  from  the  court  must  condescend  to  pay 
blackmail,  and  when  discrimination  could  be  safely  employed 
against  Assyrian  merchants.  This  favoured  position  was  lost 
when,  a  few  years  later,  Ikkilu  died,  and  his  sons  in  their 
rivalry  called  in  their  suzerain  to  decide  their  claims  to  the 
throne.  The  royal  approval  fell  upon  Azibaal,  the  other 
claimants  were  granted  the  court  dress  of  varicoloured  stuffs 
and  the  royal  ring,  but  were  prudently  detained  in  the  capital, 
that  Azibaal  might  find  a  rival  should  he  at  any  time  in  the 
future  attempt  the  independent  role  of  his  father.  Near  by 
has  been  found  a  copy  of  Ashur-bani-apal’s  Niniil  inscription, 
in  the  Babylonian  character,  but  with  mistakes  which  prove 
that  it  was  engraved  by  a  native  Syrian.2 

Final  mention  of  Syria  in  an  Assyrian  inscription  comes  in 
the  latest  part  of  the  reign,  when  the  citizens  of  Ushu,  at  the 

1  H.  992.  2  Loytved-Sayce,  ZA.,  VII,  141. 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 


419 


foot  of  Mount  Carmel,  where  is  now  the  flourishing  port  of 
Haifa,  refused  to  pay  tribute  to  the  Assyrian  governor;  the 
hand  of  Psammetichus,  now  embarked  upon  an  aggressive 
Syrian  policy,  is  doubtless  to  be  recognised.  For  the  last  time 
the  Assyrians  were  successful  in  Palestine;  the  citizens  were 
executed  or  deported.  Punishment  was  also  meted  out  to  the 
men  of  Acco  across  the  bay;  their  leaders  were  impaled  about 
the  city;  the  remainder  were  taken  to  Assyria  and  formed  into 
a  company  for  the  army. 

In  the  last  days  of  his  father,  a  certain  Mugallu  had  ap¬ 
peared  with  his  army  before  Melidia.  Loss  of  such  a  city,  a 
great  Hittite  centre  which  still  presents  a  large  mound  and 
numerous  sculptures  and  inscriptions,  was  much  to  be  dreaded, 
since  it  controlled  the  one  adequate  route  which  ran  east  from 
Mazaka  to  the  Euphrates  crossing,  and  then  by  a  corner  of 
Haldia  to  Amedi  and  to  Nineveh.  Esarhaddon  hastened  to 
his  god,  told  how  Mugallu  with  his  camp  was  before  the  city, 
how  the  commander-in-chief  with  the  royal  troops  and  the 
local  levies  had  gone  against  him,  and  inquired  whether  he 
would  be  successful  in  driving  Mugallu  from  the  walls  of  the 
beleaguered  town. 

An  eclipse  in  January,  which  had  of  old  been  supposed  to 
mean  that  the  king  of  Amurru  would  be  decreased  and  be¬ 
come  a  fugitive,  was  assumed  to  apply  either  to  Ethiopia  or 
to  Mugallu.  It  certainly  did  not  apply  to  Mugallu,  for  in  the 
next  inquiry  we  find  Mugallu  given  the  title  of  Melidian,  quite 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Now  he  has  united  with  Ishkallu  of 
Tabal  against  the  city  of  Ishtiaru,  and  the  question  is  whether 
during  the  month  of  May  they  will  have  any  success  against 
the  army  of  the  commander-in-chief,  Sha  Nabu-shu.  If  he 
breaks  camp,  with  either  Mugallu  or  Ishkallu  or  any  other 
enemy,  will  he  fall  upon  them  in  broad  daylight  or  in  the  dark 
night,  will  he  defeat  and  plunder  them,  or  make  ill  the  heart 
of  Esarhaddon,  king  of  Assyria  ? 1 

About  the  time  Ashur-bani-apal  took  the  place  of  his  father, 
Mugallu  decided  to  make  his  peace  with  the  empire.  In  the 
1  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  55  ff.;  Klauber,  Texte,  27;  H.  629. 


420 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


royal  inscriptions,  to  be  read  far  from  the  frontier,  Ashur-bani- 
apal  attributes  to  the  fear  of  his  royalty  the  submission  of  this 
prince,  who  had  raised  his  weapons  against  the  kings  his 
fathers;  Mugallu  did  send  an  embassy  without  war  or  battle, 
but  it  was  not  received  with  the  complacency  which  the  king 
publicly  assumed.  Again  he  had  recourse  to  the  oracle  and 
begged  Shamash  to  answer  him  truly,  whether  he  should  re¬ 
ceive  the  embassy  which  Mugallu  had  sent  to  make  submis¬ 
sion,  and  whether  the  Melidian  would  keep  his  plighted  word.1 
The  answer  was  favourable,  and  a  tribute  of  great  horses  was 
accepted  from  him.  Horses  are  quite  what  we  should  expect, 
for  Cappadocia  has  always  been  famous  for  her  roadsters,  but 
the  actual  beasts  were  hardly  larger  than  ponies,  and  their 
great  size  existed  only  in  the  scribe’s  imagination. 

In  the  same  inquiry  mention  was  made  of  Ishkallu,  king  of 
Tabal,  and  a  companion  who  can  only  be  the  king  of  the 
Hilaku.  The  latter  were  just  on  the  point  of  leaving  the  fer¬ 
tile  plains  of  southern  Cappadocia,  where  they  had  been  set¬ 
tled  something  more  than  a  century,  en  route  to  the  still  more 
fertile  plain  of  Cilicia,  which  was  henceforth  to  carry  their 
name.  Another  inquiry  dated  in  August  shows  them  on  then- 
way.  Will  they  go  down  from  the  place  they  now  occupy  to 
Que,  will  the  men  of  the  Kuzzurakkai  do  anything  ?  2  Like 
Mugallu,  the  Hilaku  secured  their  objective,  and  then,  settled 
in  their  new  domain,  made  their  peace  with  the  empire.  A 
generation  later,  after  the  fall  of  Babylon,  Sanda-sarme  ap¬ 
peared  in  person  with  his  gifts,  presented  his  daughter,  and 
kissed  the  royal  feet. 

In  October  of  668  the  youthful  king  asks  for  the  last  time 
of  the  fate  of  Asia  Minor.  He  would  know  of  the  allies  of  the 
Hilaku,  of  a  ruler  whose  name  ends  in  shattu,  and  of  a  son  of 
Kanda.  Now  Kandaules  is  known  to  mean  “Kanda’s  son,” 
so  we  may  see  in  this  individual  that  Kandaules  who  was  de¬ 
posed  by  Gyges  in  Lydia.  We  are  hearing  of  the  beginnings 
of  the  Lydian  Empire. 

1  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  54. 

2  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  60,  62;  Klauber,  Texte,  43. 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 


421 


On  their  confession  to  the  gods,  the  Lydians  were  no  stran¬ 
gers  to  the  Assyrians.  Not  a  hint  of  the  fears  engendered  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  official  records,  and  when  Kandaules  was  sup¬ 
planted  by  Gyges,  who  reversed  his  predecessor’s  policy 
towards  the  empire,  the  official  scribes  worked  up  a  story 
which  was  as  notable  for  its  purple  patches  as  for  its  lack  of 
historicity. 

Lydia,  according  to  this  story,  was  a  far-away  district  at  the 
crossing  of  the  sea,  and  of  which  the  kings,  his  fathers,  had 
not  so  much  as  heard.  Ashur  appeared  in  a  dream  to  Gyges 
and  thus  addressed  him:  “The  exalted  feet  of  Ashur-bani-apal, 
king  of  Assyria,  the  desire  of  Ashur,  king  of  the  gods,  the  lord 
of  all,  do  thou  seize,  fear  his  royalty  and  beseech  his  lordship. 
As  one  who  makes  vassalage  and  furnishes  tribute,  may  thy 
supplication  approach  him.”  The  very  day  the  dream  ap¬ 
peared,  a  messenger  was  started  towards  Assyria. 

A  still  later  version  narrated  the  approach  to  the  Assyrian 
frontier.  “Who  art  thou,  stranger,”  the  guards  are  repre¬ 
sented  as  saying,  “to  whose  land  has  never  any  messenger 
directed  the  way?”  They  brought  him  to  Nineveh,  and  men 
who  spoke  all  tongues,  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the  setting 
thereof,  all  with  which  Ashur  had  filled  the  royal  hand,  at¬ 
tempted  speech  with  him,  but  a  possessor  of  his  tongue  was 
not  found. 

This  version  breaks  off  at  this  point,  and  we  are  unable  to 
conjecture  how  Ashur-bani-apal  finally  discovered  that  the 
messenger  had  come  for  the  purpose  of  promising  submission. 
The  original  story,  however,  is  sure  that  from  the  very  day 
his  ambassadors  set  out,  Gyges  was  able  victoriously  to  com¬ 
bat  the  Cimmerians  who  were  oppressing  his  land,  and  in 
gratitude  thereof  sent  the  captured  chiefs  as  the  first-fruits  of 
his  submission.  Suddenly  his  messengers  ceased  to  appear; 
he  trusted  to  his  own  strength  and  sent  troops  to  the  support 
of  Psammetichus  of  Egypt.  When  the  news  of  the  aid  given 
to  the  rebel  was  brought  to  Ashur-bani-apal,  he  raised  his 
hands  to  Ashur  and  Ishtar:  “Before  his  enemies  may  his  corpse 
be  thrown,  may  they  carry  off  his  bones.”  As  he  had  prayed, 


422 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


so  it  came  to  pass.  His  corpse  was  thrown  before  his  enemies, 
his  bones  they  carried  away.  The  Cimmerians,  whom  he  had 
formerly  conquered  through  the  name  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  be¬ 
came  masters  of  his  land.  After  him  his  son  sat  on  his  throne; 
he  recognised  the  evil  deeds  done  by  his  father,  and  sent  once 
more  his  embassy  to  court  with  the  humble  prayer:  “Thou  art 
the  king  whom  God  hath  recognised.  Thou  didst  curse  my 
father  and  evil  came  upon  him;  towards  me  thy  servant  who 
feareth  thee  be  gracious,  and  I  will  bear  thy  yoke.” 

The  recital  is  not  without  its  charm  as  a  literary  composi¬ 
tion,  for  the  purpose  of  the  historian  it  is  obviously  inadequate. 
With  the  aid  of  the  Greek  writers  and  with  some  knowledge  of 
the  general  background,  it  is  possible  to  come  somewhat  nearer 
the  truth.  Gyges  had  gained  an  uneasy  throne  by  the  depo¬ 
sition  of  Kandaules,  the  last  of  the  Heraclidae.1  He  had  sensed 
the  threat  of  the  Cimmerians,  who  had  destroyed  the  Phrygian 
kingdom  about  680  and  had  forced  the  death  of  the  last  Midas 
by  his  own  hand.  The  fame  of  the  Assyrians  had  reached  him, 
and  he  hoped  that  the  two  civilised  empires  might  come  to 
some  agreement  to  crush  the  common  foe  between. 

When  he  realised  the  hollowness  of  the  imposing  imperial 
structure  and  the  hopelessness  of  securing  substantial  aid  for 
an  enterprise  so  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  their  particular  in¬ 
terests,  he  looked  about  for  other  helpers.  Psammetichus  had 
just  thrown  off  the  Assyrian  yoke,  and  it  seemed  that  a  new 
period  of  prosperity  was  dawning  for  Egypt.  Aid  given  to 
Egypt  might  be  doubled  a  little  later,  so  Gyges  had  no  hesi¬ 
tation  in  sending  him  those  mercenaries  whose  scribblings  are 
to  be  seen  in  the  temple  of  Thutmose  III  at  Wadi  Haifa.2 

Aided  by  the  Treres  and  the  Lycians,  the  Cimmerians  fell 
upon  Lydia  in  652,  and  Gyges  met  his  death  in  battle.  Sardis 
was  sacked  and  Ionia  felt  the  attack  of  Dygdamis’s  hordes. 
The  joy  of  Ashur-bani-apal  at  the  death  of  Gyges  was  not 
quite  so  great  as  he  pretends;  when  the  Cimmerians  swung 
away  again  to  the  east  and  approached  the  Assyrian  frontier 

1  Herod.,  i,  7  ff. 

2  Sayce,  PSBA.,  XVII,  42. 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 


423 


in  Cilicia,  they  presented  a  danger  of  the  first  magnitude.1 
To  increase  his  terror,  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  showed  the  light 
portion  of  the  disk  in  a  form  which  the  court  scholars  recog¬ 
nised  as  a  kidney.  On  investigating  their  store  of  tablets,  they 
came  upon  this  terrifying  statement:  “When  the  moon  in  its 
appearing  is  spread  out  like  a  kidney,  Enlil  will  go  against  the 
land  for  evil,  there  will  be  an  attack  on  the  land  by  the  Guti, 
and  that  land  will  be  destroyed.”  Substituting  only  Umman 
Manda  for  Guti,  they  sent  word  to  the  king,  who  in  frantic 
terror  rushed  to  the  oracle  of  Marduk  to  inquire  of  this  Tug- 
dame  and  his  son  Sandakshatru,  of  this  Umman  Manda  king 
who  was  the  creation  of  Tiamat,  the  primeval  chaotic  mon¬ 
ster,  and  the  model  of  an  evil  demon.  Ashur-bani-apal  fur¬ 
nishes  no  details  of  the  danger  or  of  the  manner  in  which  it 
was  averted,  but  his  abject  terror  and  the  equally  pronounced 
joy  with  which  the  outcome  was  greeted  testifies  to  its  serious¬ 
ness. 

Doubtless  there  would  be  much  to  tell  of  the  relations  be¬ 
tween  Haldia  and  the  northern  barbarians  were  the  record 
preserved;  as  it  is,  we  know  only  Haldian  relations  with 
Assyria.  These  relations  were  friendly  so  long  as  Esarhaddon 
lived,  but  the  accession  of  a  new  and  youthful  ruler  and  the 
troubles  which  marked  his  first  year  proved  too  great  a  temp¬ 
tation  to  Rusash  II.  He  had  gladly  received  back  the  Hal¬ 
dian  fugitives  from  Shupria,  but  now  he  desired  to  wean  that 
same  country  from  the  Assyrian  alliance.  In  his  extremity 
Ashur-bani-apal  again  went  to  Shamash.  Will  Rusash  the 
Urartian,  alone  or  with  his  troops,  or  with  the  Cimmerians  or 
with  his  other  allies  make  plans,  will  he  leave  the  place  where 
he  is  encamped,  to  kill,  plunder,  take  prisoner  Shupria,  the 
cities  of  Uppume  or  Kullameri  or  the  other  forts  of  Shupria, 
will  he  rob  much  or  little,  or  appropriate  for  himself?  2  For 
a  moment  there  was  danger  of  open  war,  when  one  of  the  Hal¬ 
dian  officials,  Andaria,  made  an  unexpected  night  raid  against 
those  two  cities.  Fortunately  the  Assyrians  were  awake  to 

1  Herod.,  i,  15;  Strab.,  i,  3,  21;  xiii,  4,  8;  xiv,  1,  40. 

2  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  48. 


424 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  situation;  in  spite  of  the  darkness  they  promptly  fell  upon 
him,  cut  off  his  head,  and  sent  it  to  Nineveh.  Actual  warfare 
between  the  principals  was  avoided,  and  in  all  but  one  version 
of  the  incident  this  international  breach  of  the  peace  was  clev¬ 
erly  camouflaged  by  calling  Andaria  the  village  chief  of  Lubdu, 
an  ancient  place  name  the  scribe  had  resurrected  for  the  pur¬ 
pose. 

Never  again  do  we  have  war  between  Haldia  and  Assyria. 
The  common  danger  from  the  north  brought  the  two  countries 
together  in  ever  closer  alliance,  though  the  pride  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal  would  not  make  the  admission  in  writing.  About 
the  year  648  a  third  Rusash,  the  son  of  Erimenash,  sent  an 
embassy  to  Arbela.  Action  against  their  mutual  enemies  was 
doubtless  the  reason,  but  Ashur-bani-apal  pretended  that  it 
was  through  fear  of  his  majesty  and  that  its  purpose  was  to 
ask  his  peace,  the  technical  expression  for  recognition  of  lord- 
ship.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  fashion  a  relief,  showing  the 
king  in  his  chariot  receiving  the  ambassadors. 

Yet  more  humble  was  another  embassy,  which  is  the  last 
event  commemorated  in  the  annals.  While  his  predecessors 
had  sent  concerning  brotherhood,  that  is,  had  claimed  equality, 
Sardurish  III  heard  of  the  mighty  deeds  of  the  Assyrians,  and 
like  a  son  to  a  father,  he  forwarded  his  heavy  tribute,  and 
wrote:  “ Verily  may  there  be  peace  to  the  king  my  lord.” 
Once  more  we  may  question  whether  it  was  not  the  report  of 
Cimmerian  victories  rather  than  of  Assyrian  which  caused  the 
embassy. 

The  hitherto  faithful  Mannai  had  attempted  to  free  them¬ 
selves  from  Assyrian  overlordship  by  the  aid  of  the  Scyths; 
the  clever  diplomacy  of  Esarhaddon  married  Bartatua  to  his 
daughter,  and  thus  the  Scyth  chief  became  brother-in-law  to 
Ashur-bani-apal.  Ahsheri  was  forced  to  stand  alone,  but  this 
did  not  prevent  the  Mannai  from  seizing  the  forts  near  Pad- 
diri.  Nabu-shar-usur,  the  new  commander-in-chief,  took  per¬ 
sonal  charge  of  the  forces  designed  to  recover  them,  and  his 
king  inquired  through  the  liver  omens  whether  he  would  win 
them  back  and  return  alive.  Nabu-iqbi,  the  royal  astrono- 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 


425 


mer  at  Kutu,  predicts  that  as  the  gods  have  given  Egypt  and 
Ethiopia  into  the  hands  of  the  kings,  so  will  they  grant  success 
against  the  Cimmerians  and  the  Mannai.1 

A  third  omen  is  found  in  a  letter  from  Nabu-shar-usur  him¬ 
self:  “When  the  constellation  of  the  Virgin  shines  forth  from 
the  sunrise  like  a  torch  and  in  the  sunset  fades  away,  the  troops 
of  the  enemy  will  be  severely  smitten.  When  the  south  wind 
blows  all  night,  and  having  blown  all  night  continues,  and  as 
it  continues  becomes  a  gale,  and  from  a  gale  increases  to  a 
tempest,  and  as  a  tempest  does  sweeping  damage,  on  whatso¬ 
ever  expedition  the  prince  goes  he  will  obtain  wealth/’ 

Discussion  of  the  proposed  expedition  follows:  “Whereas 
the  king  has  ordered  his  army:  1  Enter  into  the  midst  of  the 
Mannai,’  the  whole  army  should  not  enter.  Let  the  cavalry 
and  the  Dakku  invade  the  Cimmerian  land,  who  made  the 
declaration:  ‘The  Mannai  pertain  to  you,  we  shall  not  inter¬ 
fere.’  This  is  an  obvious  lie.  The  offspring  of  their  fugitives 
reverence  neither  an  oath  by  a  god  nor  a  formal  treaty.  Let 
the  chariots  and  baggage-wagons  take  their  position  on  either 
side  of  the  entrance.  With  the  horses  and  the  Dakku  let 
them  plunder  the  produce  of  the  Mannai,  let  them  return  and 
bivouac  at  the  entrance.  Once  and  twice  they  entered.  On 
the  15th  the  full  moon  appeared  with  the  sun;  this  is  an  omen 
against  them.  Wilt  thou  be  hindered  by  the  Cimmerians  ?  If 
they  do  approach,  their  comings  and  their  goings  I  do  not 
know.  I  have  sent  a  messenger  to  the  king,  may  the  lord  of 
kings  inquire  of  a  man  acquainted  with  the  country,  may  the 
king  at  his  pleasure  reinforce  his  army  with  raiders  in  addition 
to  the  other  fighting  men.  Do  thou  provision  for  thyself  a 
fortress  in  the  enemy’s  midst,  let  the  whole  army  enter  it. 
Let  the  Gududanu  go  forth  and  let  their  soldiers  seize  the 
produce;  let  them  inquire  whether  the  Indaruai  have  de¬ 
parted.  Let  the  army  enter  into  their  cities,  let  them  over¬ 
throw  them.”2 

As  Nabu-shar-usur  had  evidently  feared,  Ahsheri  made  a 
night  attack  upon  the  Assyrians,  but  was  repulsed  and  pur- 

1  Knudtzon,  Gebete,  150  f.;  Thompson,  Reports,  No.  22.  2  H.  1237. 

mm 


426 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


sued  for  three  double  hours’  distance.  Izirtu  was  abandoned 
for  his  stronghold  Atrana,  and  for  a  stretch  of  fifteen  days  the 
Assyrians  systematically  harried  the  country.  Paddiri,  the 
centre  of  the  former  Assyrian  province,  was  restored  to  the 
empire.  Ashur  and  Ishtar  handed  over  Ahsheri  to  his  sub¬ 
jects;  they  revolted  against  him,  and  threw  his  dead  body  into 
the  street.  His  son  Ualli  at  once  made  his  peace  with  the 
Assyrians,  sent  his  eldest  son,  Erisinni,  to  pay  his  devoirs  in 
Nineveh,  his  daughter  entered  the  Assyrian  harem,  but  the 
increased  tribute  of  thirty  horses  was  a  scanty  return  from 
the  oracle  which  declared  that  the  prince  on  his  expedition 
would  obtain  wealth. 

Nor  were  the  Assyrians  more  successful  with  the  Medes  far¬ 
ther  south.  A  despatch  from  Adad-ittia  tells  how  two  cap¬ 
tains  of  cavalry  were  sent  to  Sanha  and  Ulushia,  to  the  loyal 
servants  of  the  king  in  those  localities.  Grain  and  water  are 
there  according  to  their  tablet  of  instructions,  their  watch  is 
strong.  The  king  knows  that  Ishtar-babilia  is  a  double- 
tongued  man;  he  has  been  sent  into  Tikrish  and  reports  that 
the  son  of  Ahsheri  remained  in  his  frontier  camp  as  long  as 
they  were  on  the  Mannai  border.  After  Nergal-bel-usur  ar¬ 
rived,  Adad-ittia  broke  camp  and  entered  the  Mannai  land. 
He  sent  his  third  deputy  to  him,  saying:  “Come  out.”  He 
replied:  “I  am  sick.”  Adad-ittia  then  urged  him:  “Let  your 
son  come.”  He  answered:  “He  too  is  sick,  but  I  will  send  my 
brother  with  the  soldiers.”  Adad-ittia’s  messenger  made  still 
another  trip,  but  has  not  yet  returned.  All  the  other  contin¬ 
gents  of  the  village  chiefs  are  in  his  presence.1 

We  last  saw  Yatha,  lord  of  the  desert  Arabs,  holding  his 
throne  against  his  rival  Wahab  by  the  aid  of  the  Assyrians; 
after  a  time  he  wearied  of  the  yoke  and  lost  his  gods.  The 
arrival  of  a  new  king  seemed  an  auspicious  occasion  to  rein¬ 
state  himself;  he  appeared  in  Nineveh,  took  the  oath,  and  re¬ 
ceived  back  his  deities.  As  time  passed,  and  memories  of 
Nineveh  became  dim,  he  forgot  his  oaths  and  began  to  plunder 
Syria.  The  troops  stationed  on  the  southern  frontier  were  or- 

1  H.  342. 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 


427 


dered  out,  and  there  ensued  a  series  of  minor  actions  in  Hez- 
ron,  Edom,  Iabroda,  Ammon,  the  Hauran,  Moab,  Seir,  and 
Zobah. 

The  nomads  were  easily  dispersed,  their  tents  burned,  their 
flocks  and  herds  carried  off.  So  great  was  the  booty  that 
camels  were  reckoned  as  sheep,  and  their  price  was  but  half  a 
shekel  apiece  in  the  Gate  of  the  Merchant,  though  the  normal 
rate  was  a  mana  and  two- thirds.  To  such  straits  were  the 
fugitives  reduced  that  they  were  forced  to  eat  the  flesh  of  their 
children.  Yatha  fled  to  the  Nabataeans,  and  his  place  was 
taken  by  Abiyatha,  who  had  purchased  his  position  in  Assyria 
by  promising  a  yearly  tribute — gold,  eye  and  mouth  stones, 
kohl  for  painting  the  eyes  of  the  palace  ladies,  camels  and 
asses  for  them  to  ride.  Another  of  these  Cedarene  kings  who 
had  attacked  Syria  was  Amuladi;  there  was  no  need  of  a  call 
for  Assyrian  troops,  since  Chemoshhalteh  of  Moab  seized  him 
and  sent  him  to  Nineveh.  Nadnu,  too,  the  king  of  the  Naba¬ 
taeans,  whose  far-away  people  had  never  sent  tribute  to  the 
earlier  rulers,  besought  the  king’s  peace  and  promised  an 
annual  contribution. 

Nabu-shum-lishir  reports  his  war  with  the  Cedarenes.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  royal  instructions,  he  came  to  their  land,  and 
through  the  Fortune  of  the  king  he  completed  their  defeat. 
Those  who  escaped  the  iron  dagger  were  yet  reached  by  the 
outraged  royal  oath  against  which  they  had  sinned,  and  now 
they  .are  dying  of  hunger.  When  a  small  Assyrian  force  set 
out  from  the  Nabataean  country,  they  were  attacked  by  Aia- 
kamaru  of  Mash;  all  were  slain  but  one  man;  later  he  escaped 
to  the  royal  city,  and  is  now  being  sent  on  to  the  king.  Other 
Assyrians,  servants  of  the  king,  refused  to  revolt  in  the  city 
of  the  Bibarbar  tongue,  and  were  attacked  by  the  Arabs. 
Fifty  Assyrian  colonists  of  Haluli  and  twenty  Birtai  were 
wounded.  One  of  them  escaped,  and  Nabu-shum-lishir  made 
a  slaughter  of  the  Arabs;  for  the  sake  of  the  district’s  inhabi¬ 
tants  he  established  the  king’s  servants  in  the  midst.  There 
has  been  no  breakdown  of  administration,  he  has  restored 
order,  and  seven  of  their  language,  including  the  friend  of 


428 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Itailu  and  an  official  of  Shamash,  he  is  sending  on  to  the 
king.1 

Bel-liqbi  is  in  Zobah  in  middle  Syria,  which  had  been  made 
a  province  as  early  as  683.  He  has  found  that  Hesa  is  a  cara¬ 
vansary,  but  is  uninhabited,  nor  do  rab  kalle  nor  rab  raksi 
function  in  it.  This  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  void  which 
was  being  created  in  central  Syria  by  the  civil  wars  and  the 
deportations,  for  Zobah  was  a  great  Aramaean  centre  in  the 
days  of  David  and  again  in  the  early  years  of  Roman  rule  as 
Chalcis  it  played  no  small  part.  Now  Bel-liqbi  would  con¬ 
struct  thirty  houses  in  Hesa,  since  there  have  been  none  since 
the  governorship  of  Nabu-salla.  The  captain’s  heavy  armed 
bowmen  are  at  present  settled  in  Hesa;  he  would  transfer  them 
to  Argite,  where  fields  and  gardens  could  be  assigned  them. 
Let  the  king  send  a  letter  to  the  governor  Nabu-salla,  that 
he  may  appoint  his  deputy  Iairu  to  be  chief  over  the  city  of 
Mete.  He  will  appoint  Sin-iddina,  the  majordomo  of  Uhati, 
over  Sazana,  quickly  they  will  cultivate  this  fertile  place  and 
will  fear  the  king.  Yesterday  and  the  day  before  the  Arabs 
came  in  and  went  out,  there  is  complete  peace.  Amiliti,  son 
of  Ameri,  has  arrived  in  Zobah  and  he  asserts  that  all  is  at 
peace.  Uhati,  too,  sends  two  letters  to  report  that  all  is  well 
with  the  forts  and  with  the  whole  desert  of  Hamath.  Ashipa 
has  asked  about  the  Nabataeans,  the  king  advises  him  that 
they  are  before  his  face,  that  is,  he  may  do  as  he  pleases.2 

On  the  revolt  of  Shamash-shum-ukin,  Abiyatha  and  his 
brother  Aimu  came  to  his  aid  and  succeeded  in  breaking 
through  the  besieging  lines.  As  food  began  to  run  short,  they 
sallied  forth  and  again  broke  through  the  cordon.  In  some 
manner,  Abiyatha  placated  Ashur-bani-apal,  but  the  desert 
had  its  usual  effect;  once  safe  in  its  expanse,  he  gave  up  all 
pretense  of  respect  for  the  empire  and  allied  himself  with  the 
Nabataeans  who  already  regretted  their  promise  of  a  yearly 
contribution. 

A  regular  expedition  was  therefore  planned.  Leaving 
Nineveh  when  summer  was  already  upon  them,  they  plunged 

1  H.  350;  260;  262;  953.  2  H.  414;  224  f.;  305;  298. 


THE  LOSS  OF  EGYPT  AND  LYDIA 


429 


into  the  desert.  Beyond  the  Euphrates,  they  first  crossed 
high  mountains  where  trees  cast  a  welcome  shade.  A  region 
of  thorns  proved  introduction  to  the  desert  proper,  a  land  of 
thirst  and  fatigue,  in  whose  midst  was  no  bird  of  heaven,  where 
even  the  wild  asses  and  gazelles  could  find  no  pasture.  For 
some  hundred  double  hours,  nearly  five  hundred  miles,  the 
weary  track  was  followed.  In  the  middle  of  June,  they  left 
Hadatta  and  came  to  Laribda,  a  fort  of  “seal”  stone,  and 
camped  at  the  water-holes.  Another  region  of  thirst  carried 
them  to  Hurarina,  whence  they  proceeded  between  Iarki  and 
Azalia  into  another  desert  strip  where  was  no  beast  of  the 
field  and  where  no  bird  established  her  nest.  The  Nabataeans 
and  the  Isamme,  whose  eponymous  ancestor  was  Mishma, 
the  son  of  Ishmael,1  and  the  sept  of  the  god  Atar-samain,  were 
pursued  for  eight  double  hours.  Returning  to  Azalia,  where 
the  exhausted  troops  drank  the  water  of  satisfaction,  they 
followed  the.  fleeing  Arabs  through  another  region  of  thirst 
and  fatigue  to  Qurasiti.  The  sept  of  Atar-samain  and  the 
Cedarenes  under  another  Yatha,  the  nephew  of  the  former, 
were  defeated;  his  gods,  his  mother,  his  sister,  and  his  wife — 
the  order  is  interesting — were  made  prisoners,  and  the  way 
was  taken  back  to  Damascus. 

Once  more  the  terrors  of  the  desert  were  braved.  Near  the 
end  of  July  the  heat  was  at  its  maximum,  and  the  army  was 
able  to  make  six  double  hours  only  by  marching  the  whole 
night  through.  From  Hulhuliti,  still  counted  twelve  hours 
south  of  Damascus,  they  reached  the  impassable  mountain 
of  Hukkurina,  where  they  fell  upon  the  personal  sept  of 
Abiyatha  and  carried  the  two  leaders  to  Assyria.  Guards 
were  placed  at  all  the  wells  and  water-holes,  and  the  Bedawin, 
shut  off  from  the  priceless  fluid,  were  forced  to  slay  their  camels 
and  to  drink  the  bloody  fluid  enclosed  in  their  humps.  When 
they  asked  themselves,  “Why  has  this  evil  fallen  upon  the 
Arab  land,”  only  one  answer  was  possible:  “Because  we  have 
not  observed  the  great  oath  of  Ashur,  we  have  sinned  against 
the  goodness  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  the  king  whom  Enlil  loves.” 

1  Gen.  25:14;  I  Chron.  1 :  30. 


430 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


The  dependents  of  Yatha  began  to  mutter  revolt  and  his  only 
hope  lay  in  flight  to  the  Assyrians.  He  received  no  welcome 
but  was  sent  bound  to  court,  where  his  cheeks  and  jaw-bone 
were  pierced,  a  rope  was  inserted,  he  was  chained  with  a  dog- 
chain  and  set  to  guard  the  gate  of  Nineveh.  The  very  last 
picture  we  have  of  Ashur-bani-apal  shows  him  in  a  chariot 
drawn  by  four  kings  and  one  is  the  wretched  Yatha.  Aimu 
was  less  fortunate,  for  his  punishment  was  flaying  alive.1 

Permanent  results  of  these  campaigns  there  were  none. 
At  best,  the  Assyrians  had  penetrated  a  few  hundred  miles 
into  the  north  Syrian  desert  southeast  of  Damascus,  perhaps 
as  far  as  the  region  directly  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  for  the  still 
general  belief  that  the  armies  went  deep  into  the  heart  of  the 
peninsula  fades  when  the  distances  are  plotted  on  the  map. 
The  soldiers  had  endured  great  hardships  and  had  brought 
home  picturesque  accounts  of  what  they  had  seen  and  suf¬ 
fered.  It  was  fitting  that  one  of  the  rooms  in  the  palace  at 
Nineveh  should  be  decorated  with  reliefs  showing  the  progress 
of  the  Arabian  expeditions.2 

1  Note  that  Yatha  and  Abiyatha  are  royal  names  in  south  Arabian  Main. 

2  Bulletin  Amer.  Geog.  Soc.,  XLIV,  433. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 


THE  INTRIGUES  OF  ELAM 

Interesting  as  these  various  phases  of  foreign  relations 
have  been,  they  yield  in  importance  to  the  question  of  Baby¬ 
lonia  and  Elam  which  dominates  the  reign  and  forms  almost 
a  dramatic  unity.  From  the  very  enthronement  of  the  two 
princes,  the  problem  of  Elam  was  a  vital  one.  Elamite  intrigue 
was  felt  in  the  beginning  year  of  the  double  reign,  when  the 
village  chief  of  Kirbit,  Tanda,  was  moved  to  plunder  Iamutbal, 
the  eastern  border  of  Babylonia.  This  affected  the  territory 
occupied  by  the  citizens  of  Der,  who  appealed  to  Ashur-bani- 
apal  for  protection  against  the  marauder.  The  near-by  As¬ 
syrian  governor,  Nur-ekalli-umu,  was  ordered  out  against 
him,  and  in  due  time  the  leading  rebels  were  impaled  about 
the  city  and  the  others  were  deported  into  Egypt. 

A  private  quarrel  in  Babylon  seemed  about  to  plunge  the 
country  into  disorder.  The  house  chief  Sillai  and  the  scribe 
Marduk-eresh  complained  to  the  king:  “The  house  of  our 
lords,  our  governors,  is  new.  The  king  does  not  realise  that 
the  governor  of  Arrapha  has  taken  the  gift  which  the  king 
presented  to  our  lords.  Let  me  make  known  that  the  house 
of  our  lords  is  reduced.  The  king  knows  that  our  lord  had  no 
legal  contest  with  his  opponent,  and  when  we  plead  our  case 
he  is  suspicious  of  us.  Let  the  king  appoint  one  of  his  Com¬ 
panions  over  us  that  he  may  bring  information  about  us  to 
the  king  and  let  him  appoint  a  guardsman  over  the  house  of 
his  servant,  let  him  give  judgment  concerning  his  house.”  1 

His  chief  opponent  was  Zakir,  the  head  shepherd  of  Nabu, 
who  had  already  earned  the  respect  of  Esarhaddon  by  his  re¬ 
quest  that  the  sanctuaries  of  Babylon  should  be  treated  as 
they  had  been  by  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  and  who  had  further 
won  his  regard  by  prophesying  harm  to  Amurru  as  the  result 

1 H.  415. 

431 


432 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  an  eclipse.  His  reply  to  Sillai  was  ready:  “When  the  sky 
is  smitten  with  darkness,  abundance  will  be  in  the  land.  Sillai 
has  written  by  the  hand  of  Shakin-shum:  'To  death  will  I 
consign  thee,  for  why  hast  thou  written:  “Sillai  has  taken 
my  goods’ ’?  ‘Munnabittum  is  your  witness  and  Bel  ...  is 
in  charge  of  my  case.  As  for  a  witness,  what  has  he  taken 
from  my  goods  and  how  much  ?  ’  When  he  learns  that  I  have 
written  to  the  king — and  there  is  still  more  that  I  have  not 
told  the  king — he  will  take  all.  I  have  prayed  in  my  father’s 
house,  but  he  has  always  intrigued,  he  has  plotted  constantly 
against  me,  let  not  the  king  abandon  me.”  1 

Munnabittum  does  indeed  write  to  the  king  in  response  to 
an  inquiry  about  Ashur-etir,  the  son  of  Sillai.  Nabu-apal- 
iddina  has  killed  his  servants,  although  the  king  has  decided 
the  case,  no  one  gives  them  a  thought,  they  plead  for  their 
lives.  He  and  his  brethren  have  pleaded  their  case  before 
the  king,  whatever  the  king  wishes,  let  it  be  decreed.2 

As  a  result  of  this  series  of  complaints  and  counter-com¬ 
plaints,  Bel-etir  was  killed  by  Shuzub  of  the  Gahul  family;  so 
notable  was  this  atrocity  that  the  fact  was  inserted  in  the  gen¬ 
eral  history  we  call  the  Babylonian  Chronicle  under  the  date 
of  January,  667.  Through  Bel-uballit,  the  citizens  of  Babylon 
sent  a  protest  to  the  two  monarchs:  “The  kings  our  lords, 
from  the  time  they  ascended  the  throne,  set  their  faces  to  pro¬ 
tect  our  chartered  rights  and  for  our  welfare.  The  kings  our 
lords  have  ordained  that  those  who  occupy  our  fields,  whether 
a  woman  of  Elam,  of  Tabal,  or  of  the  Ahlame,  should  have 
protection,  as  they  have  declared:  'The  gods  have  given  you 
open  ears  and  an  open  heart.  For  all  the  lands  is  Babylon 
the  bond  of  the  lands;  whoever  enters  there,  his  protection  is 
guaranteed.’  'One  breaking  through  of  the  house  of  Baby¬ 
lon’  is  the  name  given  to  the  charter.  'A  dog  which  enters 
shall  not  be  killed.’  ”  Eteru,  as  he  is  here  called,  had  with  his 
sons  taken  the  feet  of  the  king’s  father,  the  watch  of  their  lord 
they  kept;  in  spite  of  this  protection  he  has  been  killed  and 
the  women  folk  of  his  sons  carried  off.  The  citizens  beg  for 
lH.  137;  416.  2  H.  928. 


THE  INTRIGUES  OF  ELAM 


433 


aid,  “  since  in  the  name  of  Babylon  are  women  who  are  there 
married  secure  in  their  right  through  us.”  1 

Zakir  replies  to  this  as  follows:  “They  seized  the  sons  of 
Eteru,  the  Sealander  whom  the  king  appointed,  but  declared 
it  was  by  order  of  the  king.  They  gave  blame  to  the  sons  in 
the  sight  of  the  king,  but  Ubaru,  governor  of  Babylon,  says 
it  is  not  a  royal  order.  Earlier,  in  Kalhu,  the  king  accepted 
what  was  for  the  peace  of  Babylon,  he  has  lifted  up  his  heart 
in  their  behalf,  he  has  established  affairs  in  Babylon.”  He 
says:  “The  city  was  ruined,  I  reduced  it  to  order,  its  inde¬ 
pendence  I  established.”  This  is  the  word  received  from  the 
mouth  of  the  king  of  lands,  these  the  king  had  admitted.  But 
the  Babylonians  have  been  given  a  bribe,  the  wages  have  been 
held  back,  the  king  released  men  for  money;  let  him  set  free 
a  hundred  from  Elam  and  the  Hittite  land,  for  the  sake  of 
Bel  and  Sarpanitum  may  they  be  free  from  death.  They  will 
give  money  for  those  whom  the  king  permits  to  live,  the  good 
word  which  the  king  withholds  can  avail  nothing  without  the 
power  of  the  king.  Sillai,  the  Babylonian,  does  not  wish  this; 
the  king  is  well  acquainted  with  the  matter,  let  him  do  as  he 
wishes.2 

Sillai  seems  to  have  gotten  the  worst  of  the  bargain,  for  Bel- 
usatu,  the  royal  shepherd,  writes  his  master  that  Sillai  is  in 
prison,  without  the  king’s  aid  he  will  die.  His  opponents  do 
what  they  please  and  bring  the  affairs  of  the  king  into  con¬ 
fusion.  Sillai  begs  “May  the  king  hear  me.”  3 

Elam  had  been  on  good  terms  with  Assyria  since  the  ac¬ 
cession  of  Urtaku  in  675.  When  a  great  famine  held  Elam 
in  its  grasp  and  the  people  were  in  sore  need,  Esarhaddon  sent 
grain  to  his  royal  friend  and  allowed  his  subjects  to  remain 
in  Assyria  until  there  should  be  harvest  and  rain.  The  youth 
of  the  new  rulers  and  the  division  of  the  empire  quite  counter¬ 
balanced  any  pro-Assyrian  leanings  cherished  by  Urtaku.4 

One  of  the  most  important  of  the  Aramsean  tribes  of  Baby¬ 
lonia,  the  Gambulu,  was  ruled  by  Bel-iqisha,  who  had  been 
recognised  by  the  Assyrians  as  a  shatam  official.  His  relations 
Itf.  878.  2  H.  702.  3  H.  1111.  4  H.  295. 


434 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


with  the  Assyrians  deputed  to  Babylonia  were  not  happy,  and 
he  had  frequent  complaints  to  make  to  the  king.  He  has  had 
trouble  over  two  mares  and  he  has  been  slandered  before  the 
abarakku.  He  has  been  mocked  by  a  scribe  who  declared: 
“I  shall  remove  thee  from  this  house.”  Since  the  time  when 
the  king  appointed  Bel-iqisha  in  the  house  of  his  lords,  he  has 
had  no  power  over  anything  in  the  house  of  his  lords.  He 
has  spoken  to  his  own  private  secretary  and  has  been  told: 
“He  has  boasted  that  he  has  subjugated  the  whole  house  of 
my  lords  to  himself.”  He  has  distributed  gifts  and  in  this 
manner  he  has  destroyed  Bel-iqisha.  At  last  he  has  even  given 
bribes  to  his  private  scribe  and  has  alienated  him.  These  five 
months  Bel-iqisha  has  been  waiting  orders  from  the  king  while 
his  sons  have  gone  to  Kalhu.  All  the  sons  of  the  other  chiefs 
have  been  exalted,  but  his  sons  tarry  and  the  king  has  closed 
the  way.1 

Matters  were  reaching  the  breaking  point,  and  Bel-iqisha 
may  be  already  picking  a  quarrel  with  the  king  when  he  writes 
rather  insolently:  “The  servants  of  the  house  of  my  lords 
whom  the  king  this  day  has  distinguished  by  promotion,  Taba- 
lai,  the  son  of  Bel  Harran-aha-usur,  whom  he  has  made  cap¬ 
tain,  Nabu-sakip,  whom  he  has  made  shalshu  of  the  standing 
army,  and  Emur  Marduk,  whom  he  has  made  a  guardsman, 
these  three  men  are  hard  drinkers.  When  they  become 
drunken,  not  one  of  them  will  turn  away  the  iron  dagger  from 
those  who  meet  them.”  Bel-iqisha  has  sent  the  report  that 
he  knows,  let  the  king  do  as  he  will.2 

The  Elamite  governor,  Marduk-shum-ibni,  was  eager  to 
begin  an  offensive  against  Babylonia,  and  persuaded  Bel- 
iqisha  and  Nabu-shum-eresh,  the  qadu,  to  desert  their  mas¬ 
ter.  Messengers  reported  that  the  Elamites  were  advancing 
against  Babylon,  and  that  they  covered  the  ground  like  grass¬ 
hoppers.  Great  was  the  alarm  in  Assyria,  where  the  command 
devolved  upon  Nabu-shar-usur.  Ashur-bani-apal  demanded 
of  Shamash  whether  the  Gambulu  would  fight  for  or  against 
the  Assyrians  and  whether  his  general  would  return  alive.3 

1  H.  84;  698.  2  H,  85.  3Knudtzon,  Gebete ,  153, 


THE  INTRIGUES  OF  ELAM  435 

Soon  it  was  learned  that  Bel-iqisha  had  indeed  revolted  and 
Nabu-ushabshi,  governor  of  the  city  of  Uruk,  was  ordered  to 
lead  his  levies  against  the  chief  city  of  the  Gambulu.  Nabu- 
ushabshi  was  nothing  loath,  for,  as  he  answers,  “The  gods  of 
the  king  my  lord  surely  know  that  since  Bel-iqisha  revolted 
from  the  hands  of  the  king  and  went  over  to  Elam,  he  has 
plundered  my  father’s  house,  and  has  gone  about  seeking  to 
kill  my  brother.”  He  is  frankly  sceptical  about  the  success 
of  the  king’s  plan;  if  it  does  not  force  submission  of  the  Gam¬ 
bulu,  let  all  Akkad  be  collected  and  the  land  will  be  returned. 
Sharru-emuranni  was  much  troubled  about  Bel-iqisha  and 
the  king’s  gold.  His  men  went  to  the  Puqudu,  Uruk,  and 
Sapea,  fifty  of  them  build  their  house  according  to  his  orders; 
following  his  master’s  instructions,  he  has  despatched  cavalry 
under  a  captain.1 

Shortly  after,  Urtaku  died  by  the  death-dealing  stroke  of 
Nergal,  that  is,  by  the  pestilence,  and  his  place  was  taken  by 
Tep  Humban,  the  former  chief  of  his  bowmen.  An  anti- As¬ 
syrian  policy  was  continued  and  Massi  was  sent  to  aid  the 
Gambulu  where  Bel-iqisha  had  met  his  death  by  the  bite  of 
a  wild  boar  and  had  been  followed  by  his  son  Dunnanu.  Dun- 
nanu  and  Massi  were  soon  Assyrian  prisoners  and  the  men 
of  Nippur  were  praised  for  having  arrested  Rimutu.  Rimutu 
now  promised  Nabu-dur-usur  that  he  would  pay  tribute  to 
the  king  and  when  the  Gambulu  asked  for  him  in  the  place 
of  the  deposed  Dunnanu,  Ashur-bani-apal  graciously  replied: 
“Let  him  come  and  see  my  face;  I  will  clothe  him  with  the 
ceremonial  robe  and  will  cheer  his  heart.  Over  you  do  I  ap¬ 
point  him.”  Happily  the  Gambulu  admit  that  they  are  dead 
dogs,  let  Rimutu  come  in  the  joy  of  their  lord,  let  him  bind 
the  land.2 

In  his  efforts  to  destroy  rival  claimants  to  the  throne,  Tep 
Humban  forced  out  of  the  country  over  sixty  of  the  royal 
family,  including  Humbanigash,  Humbanappa,  and  Tam- 
maritu,  sons  of  the  late  king,  Kudur  and  Paru  of  Hilmu,  sons 
of  his  brother  Humbanhaltash,  and  free-born  citizens  without 
1  H.  269;  313  ff.;  cf.  914.  2  H.  228;  910;  293;  915. 


436  HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 

number.  They  found  in  Assyria  a  royal  welcome,  for  in  them 
was  the  nucleus  of  a  pro-Assyrian  party  in  their  native  land. 

The  reception  extended  by  the  Assyrian  government  to 
these  exiles  called  for  protest,  and  month  after  month  Tep 
Humban  sent  to  demand  their  surrender.  Ashur-bani-apal 
refused  to  listen  and  detained  the  legates,  Nabu-damiq  and 
Humbandara.  They  are  represented,  a  fat  old  eunuch  and  a 
young  official,  with  the  tablet  which  contained  their  rash  de¬ 
mands  and  with  their  whips  of  office  in  their  girdles,  in  the 
relief  which  commemorated  the  embassy  of  the  Haldian  Ru- 
sash. 

To  the  consternation  of  the  Assyrian,  war  was  renewed  by 
this  “form  of  an  evil  demon/ ’  but  the  gods  gave  encourage¬ 
ment.  The  moon-god  rested  from  dawn  to  full  morning  light, 
the  sun  was  darkened  and  rested  for  three  long  July  days.  This 
portended  the  end  of  Tep  Humban’s  rule;  soon  after  he  was 
stricken,  “his  lips  slavered,  his  eye  rolled,  wildness  was  im¬ 
parted  to  it.”  Despite  this  epileptic  attack,  preparations  were 
continued  by  the  Elamites,  and  the  alarm  increased  the  next 
month  when  it  was  learned  that  the  Elamite  had  reached  Bit 
Imbi  and  was  threatening  Der. 

Ashur-bani-apal  was  in  Arbela  and  promptly  sought  out 
the  local  Ishtar.  With  tears  streaming  down  his  face,  he 
begged  her  aid  in  return  for  the  many  shrines  he  had  rebuilt 
and  for  the  many  services  he  had  rendered  her.  The  answer 
came  through  the  seer.  In  a  dream  of  the  night,  he  saw  Ishtar 
appear  to  the  praying  king,  quivers  to  right  and  to  left  of  her, 
bow  and  sharp  battle-sword  in  her  hand.  Like  a  mother  she 
spoke  to  him  and  protected  him  in  her  bosom.  Ashur-bani- 
apal  impulsively  declared  that  he  would  go  whither  so  ever 
she  went,  but  the  goddess  knew  his  character  too  well  to  take 
him  at  his  word.  While  she  marched  against  his  enemies, 
flames  going  before  her,  he  was  to  remain  at  Arbela  in  the 
shrine  of  Nabu,  eating  food  and  drinking  sesame  wine,  making 
music,  and  praising  her  godship.  His  face  was  not  to  be  pale, 
his  feet  incapable  of  motion,  his  strength  wasted  in  battle. 
The  seer  gave  the  answer  he  knew  would  please  his  master 


THE  INTRIGUES  OF  ELAM  437 

and  in  inscription  and  sculpture  Ashur-bani-apal  admitted 
his  lack  of  bravery.  As  he  grew  older,  he  became  somewhat 
ashamed  of  this  record  and  claimed  the  war  for  himself,  though 
the  very  pictures  on  the  wall  of  his  palace  gave  this  statement 
the  lie. 

So  interested  was  Ashur-bani-apal  in  relating  the  inter¬ 
position  of  Ishtar  that  he  had  little  space  to  spare  for  details 
of  the  war.  Fortunately,  we  may  have  recourse  to  the  sculp¬ 
tures  and  to  the  inscriptions  which  were  drafted  to  be  placed 
upon  them.  By  September  the  Assyrian  armies  were  ready 
to  march  out  from  their  base  in  Der,  accompanied  by  the  pre¬ 
tender  Humbanigash.  Tep  Humban  fell  back  from  Bit  Imbi 
to  Susa,  collected  his  gold  and  silver,  and  took  up  his  position 
at  Til  Tuba,  not  far  from  Tulliz.  One  flank  rested  on  the  Ulai 
River,  the  other  on  a  hill,  and  between  were  date-orchards. 
In  the  rear  was  Mataktu,  its  battlemented  towers  behind  the 
protection  of  a  stream  junction. 

After  another  convenient  vision  had  appeared  to  the  seer 
and  the  troops  had  been  properly  encouraged,  the  army  moved 
to  the  attack.  Early  in  the  action  Simburu,  the  Elamite  nagir, 
deserted  to  the  Assyrians.  Ituni,  a  eunuch  general  of  Tep 
Humban,  was  seized  by  the  hair  and  was  decapitated  before 
he  could  destroy  his  bow  with  his  own  sword.  Urtaku,  son- 
in-law  of  Tep  Humban,  was  wounded  by  a  javelin;  as  he  lay 
on  the  ground,  he  implored  his  captor  to  cut  off  his  head  and 
present  it  to  Ashur-bani-apal,  who  would  perchance  take  it 
as  a  good  omen.  The  pole  of  the  chariot  which  conveyed  Tep 
Humban  broke  and  the  horses  ran  away.  His  eldest  son,  Tam- 
maritu,  was  acting  as  driver;  he  seized  his  father  by  the  hand 
and  begged  him  to  pour  out  a  libation  and  flee.  A  javelin 
wound  in  the  right  side  brought  Tep  Humban  to  his  knee, 
but  he  still  urged  his  son  to  shoot  with  the  bow.  When  he 
saw  that  the  day  was  lost,  he  tore  his  beard  and  fled  to  the 
woods  with  his  still  faithful  son.  Here  they  were  overtaken, 
the  son  brained  with  the  mace,  the  father  decapitated,  and 
his  head,  javelin,  and  bow  forwarded  to  Assyria. 

The  Assyrian  general,  likewise  a  eunuch,  led  forward  Hum- 


438 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


banigash  to  receive  the  acclamations  of  the  multitude ;  to  many 
it  must  have  seemed  an  omen  of  ill  that  it  was  the  left  hand 
of  the  officer  which  led  him.  His  new  subjects  went  down  on 
their  knees  and  kissed  the  ground  when  Humbanigash  raised 
his  hand  in  blessing  while  from  near  by  Mataktu  came  forth 
singers  and  musicians  to  celebrate  his  home-coming.  Assyrian 
soldiers  in  the  procession  were  a  less  welcome  element,  and 
there  were  those  who  could  not  forget  that  for  three  days  the 
Ulai  had  been  dammed  by  the  slain.  Tep  Humban’s  severed 
head  was  received  in  Arbela,  and  the  fallen  monarch’s  bow 
was  dedicated  to  the  goddess  whose  was  the  glory. 

With  Elam  in  the  friendly  hands  of  the  second  Humbani¬ 
gash,  Ashur-bani-apal  could  attend  to  the  petty  princes  who 
had  aided  Tep  Humban.  Humbankidinni,  the  nagir  of  Hidalu, 
brought  in  the  head  of  his  former  master  Ishtar-nandi  and  the 
Hidalu  were  made  safe  by  the  kingship  of  a  younger  brother 
of  Humbanigash,  another  Tammaritu.  Of  the  other  rebels, 
Marduk-shum-ibni  was  dead  and  Nabu-shum-eresh  had  suc¬ 
cumbed  to  dropsy. 

Ashur-bani-apal  was  about  to  leave  Arbela  for  Nineveh  and 
the  severed  head  of  Tep  Humban  was  intrusted  to  Dunnanu’s 
neck  for  transport.  As  the  musicians  led  the  ghastly  proces¬ 
sion  into  Nineveh,  the  terrible  sight  crazed  ITumbandara  and 
Nabu-damiq,  the  ambassadors  who  had  received  their  com¬ 
missions  from  the  dead  monarch.  One  tore  his  beard,  the 
other  thrust  his  girdle  sword  into  his  bosom.  Aplia,  son  of 
Nabu-ushallim  and  grandson  of  the  famous  Merodach  Baladan, 
was  extradited  from  Elam;  Mannu-ki-ahe,  Dunnanu,  and 
Nabu-ushallim,  the  Gambulu  chieftains,  had  spoken  blasphemy 
against  the  Assyrian  gods,  and  for  this  crime  they  had  their 
tongues  pulled  out  by  the  roots  and  were  flayed  alive. 

The  horrible  scene  is  represented  on  one  of  the  bas-reliefs, 
although,  strangely  enough,  the  names  have  never  been  filled 
in  the  blanks  left  for  the  purpose.  Dunnanu  was  placed  on 
the  rack  and  slaughtered  like  a  lamb,  his  brother  Samgunu 
and  Aplia  were  slain  and-  their,  flesh  distributed  among  the 
surrounding  lands.  Nabu-naid  and  Behetir,  sons  of  Nabu- 


THE  INTRIGUES  OF  ELAM 


439 


shum-eresh,  were  forced  to  crush  the  bones  of  their  father, 
and  the  head  of  Tep  Humban  found  its  final  resting-place  over 
the  gate  which  led  to  Ashur.  Like  many  a  weakling,  Ashur- 
bani-apal  combined  artistic  tastes  with  a  cruelty  which  augured 
ill  for  the  future  of  Assyria. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 


THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  DUAL  MONARCHY 

Seventeen  long  years  Shamash-shum-ukin  had  remained 
loyal  to  his  brother.  During  this  whole  period,  there  had  been 
a  difference  in  the  theory  of  the  state  which  was  fraught  with 
danger.  To  the  partisans  of  the  southern  monarch,  there  was 
only  an  Assyrian  empire,  one  and  indivisible,  where  by  the 
accident  of  circumstances  there  ruled  two  kings  who  for  con¬ 
venience  had  divided  the  world  between  them.  Shamash- 
shum-ukin  always  called  Ashur-bani-apal  “  brother,”  and  his 
followers  regularly  refer  to  the  “ kings  our  lords.”  Ashur- 
bani-apal  does  indeed  give  Shamash-shum-ukin  this  title  of 
“ brother,”  and  even  uses  in  his  official  documents  that  of 
“ equal  brother,”  which  he  likewise  gives  to  Marduk  as  the 
peer  of  Ashur,  but  no  servant  of  his  ever  recognises  more  than 
one  “lord  king.” 

Cold  facts  did  not  agree  with  the  theory  of  equality. 
Shamash-shum-ukin  did  indeed  possess  Babylon,  once  the 
capital  of  the  alluvium,  but  not  even  all  of  north  Babylonia 
was  under  his  control.  He  is  invoked  in  business  documents 
from  Borsippa,  Dilbat,  Sippar,  Dakkuru,  and  Nagitu  only; 
in  other  words,  in  the  territory  immediately  surrounding  the 
city  of  Babylon.  The  governor  of  Uruk,  for  example,  reported 
direct  to  Ashur-bani-apal  and  spoke  of  Shamash-shum-ukin 
as  a  private  individual.  When  Ashur-bani-apal  restored  the 
temple  tower  in  Nippur,  the  ancestor  of  all  Ekurs,  “mountain 
houses,”  his  Shumerian  recital  omitted  all  reference  to  his 
brother.  We  even  find  a  certain  Nabu-bel-usur  who  is  shaknu 
or  governor  of  Babylon;  he  too  must  represent  another  check 
on  Shamash-shum-ukin. 

While  Shamash-shum-ukin  is  never  mentioned  in  the  build¬ 
ing  records  from  outside  his  territory,  Ashur-bani-apal  was 

very  careful  that  proper  credit  should  be  given  himself  in  Baby- 

440 


THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  DUAL  MONARCHY  441 


Ion.  There  was  indeed  much  of  building  in  Babylon  in  this 
period.  Esagila  was  adorned  with  gold,  silver,  and  precious 
stones,  with  beams  of  cedar  and  cypress  from  Amanus  and 
Lebanon,  with  gates  of  box,  palm,  fir,  and  cedar.  Arad-aheshu, 
the  official  in  charge,  reports  direct  to  Ashur-bani-apal  and 
merely  refers  to  the  “king  of  Babylon. ”  They  have  built 
the  house  of  Esagila  and  its  upper  court  where  the  Lord  and 
the  Lady  dwell,  together  with  its  temples,  the  house  of  the 
shrine  of  Tashmetum,  the  lower  court  with  its  temple.  A 
protecting  wall  of  prayer  has  been  constructed,  the  god  Nabu 
will  have  his  abode,  the  whole  structure  will  be  covered  with 
bitumen.  The  king  of  Babylon  has  spoken  thus:  “Make  a 
continuous  wall  for  Esagila;  make  also  the  house  of  the  Lady 
of  Babylon.  Let  them  tear  down  the  courts  of  Esagila.”  It 
is  implied  by  Arad-aheshu  that  he  will  not  execute  these  orders 
until  he  has  authorisation  from  his  own  master.1  Ekarzagina, 
the  house  of  Ea  in  Esagila,  was  rebuilt,  Ebabbara  of  Sippar 
was  restored  through  the  labour  of  the  brick-god  and  was  raised 
mountain  high,  Ezida  of  Borsippa  was  renewed,  and  Imgur 
Bel  and  Nimitti  Bel,  the  walls  of  Babylon,  were  made  anew 
with  their  gates  and  towers. 

The  attitude  of  Ashur-bani-apal  is  best  shown  by  the  in¬ 
stallation  record  worked  into  almost  all  the  inscriptions  which 
celebrated  Assyrian  building  in  Babylonia:  “In  the  days  of 
my  reign,  Marduk  entered  Babylon,  the  appointed  temple 
offerings  for  Esagila  and  the  gods  of  Babylon  I  established, 
the  chartered  privileges  of  Babylon  I  bound  fast.  ‘So  that 
the  strong  should  not  injure  the  weak’  ” — he  is  quoting  the 
Code  of  Hammurabi  and  the  quotation  sounds  strange  in  the 
mouth  of  an  Assyrian — “/  established  my  brother  on  an  equal¬ 
ity  as  king  over  Babylon.  Esagila,  which  my  father  had  not 
completed,  I  finished.”  Ashur-bani-apal  would  gladly  have 
assimilated  Shamash-shum-ukin  to  the  position  held  by  his 
younger  brothers,  who  were  to  be  purely  ornamental  means 
of  keeping  within  the  family  the  control  of  the  most  sacred 
city  states. 


lH.  119  f.;  cf.  1066. 


442 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Granted  that  Ashur-bani-apal  is  telling  the  truth  when  he 
speaks  of  soldiers,  horses,  chariots,  cities,  fields,  vineyards, 
peoples,  with  which  he  filled  the  hand  of  his  brother  to  a  de¬ 
gree  greater  than  his  father  had  given  order,  patriotic  Baby¬ 
lonians  could  not  forget  the  fact  of  dependence.  Nor  are  we 
without  further  evidence  that  the  Assyrian  overlords  treated 
the  Babylonians  as  a  conquered  people.  We  have  a  complaint 
that  Hulala,  the  housekeeper  of  Shamash,  has  carried  off'  the 
sky  or  ceiling  from  Esagila  and  has  killed  the  priests  of  Bel. 
The  people  are  angered  at  the  robbery  of  Babylon’s  most 
honoured  shrine,  and  declare  that  they  are  no  longer  safe, 
they  will  be  made  like  the  city  of  Gana.1 

So  in  May,  652,  the  revolt  flamed  forth.  In  token  of  formal 
break  with  the  old  era,  sacrifices  were  no  longer  offered  for 
Ashur-bani-apal  before  Marduk  and  his  fellows.  A  bid  was 
made  for  Uruk  and  the  south  by  a  bilingual  inscription  in  which 
the  Shumerian  was  constructed  without  much  accuracy  from 
fragments  of  earlier  writings  and  by  the  assumption  of  the  title 
“King  of  Amnanu,”  sanctified  by  Sin-gashid  of  Uruk  a  thou¬ 
sand  years  before.  All  Babylonia,  from  Aqaba  near  the  north 
line  of  the  alluvium  to  Bab  Salimeti  at  the  mouth  of  the  Eu¬ 
phrates,  planned  revolt  and  all  the  elements  disaffected  against 
Assyria,  the  Amukkanu,  Dakkuru,  Puqudu,  Gurasimmu, 
were  included.  To  the  Elamites  the  scribe  adds  other  foreign 
peoples,  the  Guti,  Amurru,  and  Meluhha;  we  are  to  see  in 
these  the  tribes  on  the  Median  border,  the  men  of  Syria,  and 
of  Egypt,  not  long  since  free  from  the  Assyrian  yoke. 

Ashur-bani-apal  acted  at  once — in  writing.  Hostilities  were 
begun  on  the  23d  of  May  with  a  letter  by  the  hand  of  Shamash- 
balatsu-iqbi  to  the  citizens  of  Babylon:  “As  for  the  words 
my  not-brother  has  spoken,  I  have  heard  all  that  he  told  you. 
They  are  naught  but  wind,  do  not  believe  him.  By  Ashur 
and  Marduk,  my  gods,  I  swear  that  they  are  shameful  words 
which  he  has  spoken  against  me.  In  my  heart  I  consider  and 
with  my  mouth  I  declare:  More  than  craft  doth  he  practise 
when  he  says :  ‘  I  will  make  the  reputations  of  the  Babylonians 

1  H.  468. 


Fig.  149.  ASHUR-BANI-APAL  IN  HIS  CHARIOT.  Fig.  150.  MUSICIANS  AND  SOLDIERS  OF 

(Louvre.)  ASHUR-BANI-APAL.  (Louvre.) 


THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  DUAL  MONARCHY  443 


who  love  Ashur-bani-apal  as  shameful  as  his  own.’  I,  for  my 
part,  do  not  hearken  to  it.  Your  brotherhood  with  the  sons 
of  Ashur  and  your  chartered  privileges  have  I  protected; 
hearken  not  a  moment  to  his  lies.  Destroy  not  your  good 
name,  thus  far  unsullied  before  me  and  before  all  lands,  make 
not  yourselves  sinners  against  God.  There  is  another  matter 
which,  as  well  I  know,  you  ponder  in  your  minds :  ‘ Since  we  be¬ 
came  attached  to  him,  our  taxes  are  excessive.’  No  tax  exists, 
for  the  offering  was  naught  but  a  name;  now,  however,  A^e 
you  have  taken  your  stand  with  my  adversary,  let  it  be  re¬ 
garded  as  an  imposition  of  taxes  upon  you  and  a  sin  against 
the  oath  before  God.  Behold,  I  have  written  you  at  this  time 
that  in  these  matters  you  should  not  pollute  yourself  with 
him.  Speedily  let  there  be  a  reply  to  my  letter;  the  appor¬ 
tionment  which  I  have  set  apart  for  Bel  shall  not  this  wretch, 
forsaken  of  Marduk,  take  from  my  hand  and  destroy.”  1 
The  verbal  attack  produced  no  results  and  the  alarm  in 
Assyria  increased.  Zakutu,  the  aged  grandmother  to  whose 
devotion  the  royal  brothers  had  owed  their  throne,  took  refuge 
in  prayer.  “0  God,”  so  runs  her  supplication,  “I  beseech 
thee  concerning  that  matter  of  the  revolt  which  they  have 
reported  to  Ashur-bani-apal:  ‘They  are  stirring  up  revolt 
against  the  city.’  Is  it  decreed,  is  it  established,  will  it  come 
to  pass,  will  they  take  the  offensive,  will  they  conquer,  shall 
I  die,  shall  they  take  possession?  Heed  not  that  a  woman 
has  written  this  and  placed  it  before  thee.”  2 
Two  months  after  the  last  attempt  to  win  over  the  Baby¬ 
lonians,  on  the  27th  of  July,  Ashur-bani-apal  inquired  of 
Shamash  whether  his  troops  could  cross  the  Euphrates,  enter 
Babylon,  and  secure  Shamash-shum-ukin.  The  reply  was  un¬ 
favourable.  Ishtar  of  Arbela,  on  the  other  hand,  lived  up  to 
her  past  reputation.  His  bow  is  to  be  mighty,  his  weapon 
exalted  over  all  foes.  The  people  of  Akkad  shall  in  their  hun¬ 
ger  gnaw  bones;  the  rebels  who  plot  in  assemblies  and  fear 
not  her  divinity  shall  be  given  into  his  hand.  It  is  Ashur- 
bani-apal,  reverencing  her  divinity,  who  shall  complete  the 
lH.  301.  2  H.  1367  f.;  Waterman,  AJSL.,  XXIX,  6;  24  ff. 


444 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


shrines  of  the  gods  and  restore  the  sacrifices;  as  for  Shamash- 
shum-ukin,  who  has  not  observed  her  treaties  and  has  sinned 
against  the  grace  of  his  brother,  the  king  beloved  of  the  god¬ 
dess’s  heart,  with  mighty  restraint  has  she  restrained  him  and 
will  bind  him,  in  the  noses  of  his  chiefs  will  she  insert  cords. 
By  her  order  shall  Ashur-bani-apal  plunder  their  cities  and 
carry  home  to  Assyria  their  vast  wealth.1 

South  Babylonia  was  still  under  Assyrian  control,  but  it 
Wellard  pressed  by  the  troops  of  Shamash-shum-ukin.  Tak¬ 
ing  the  treasures  from  the  temples,  he  sent  them  to  Humbani- 
gash,  who  had  lost  his  enthusiasm  for  Assyria  when  Ashur- 
bani-apal  had  demanded  the  return  of  the  goddess  Nana  from 
Susa.  A  son  of  the  late  Tep  Humban,  Undasu  by  name,  was 
commanded :  “  Go,  take  vengeance  from  Assyria  for  thy  father, 
thy  begetter.”  The  Pillatu  and  the  Hilmu  accompanied 
him. 

A  letter  from  Humbanigash  to  his  brother  Amagunu  was 
captured  by  the  Assyrians.  Aisaggi  and  Bel  Harranishu,  the 
two  men  sent  to  him,  did  not  enter  the  city.  When  they  cap¬ 
ture  Esiggi,  they  will  set  him  before  Humbanigash.  For¬ 
merly,  so  the  messenger  asserts,  he  sent  him  a  message,  but 
none  has  arrived.  Humbanigash  made  an  end  of  the  discus¬ 
sion  by  saying:  “The  command  of  thy  messenger  I  perceive, 
behold  I  have  sent  thee  command  by  the  hand  of  thy  mes¬ 
senger.”  They  replied:  “I  will  not  hearken  to  him,  he  will 
not  yield,  hither  they  shall  not  come.”  When  he  comes,  let 
him  take  the  message.  The  two  kings  are  restored  together. 
As  many  as  dwell  in  the  house  of  his  father,  now  Umbartashu, 
qepu  of  Hamu,  has  opened  it,  he  dwells  in  that  city.  To  him 
the  king  will  hearken.2 

Accompanied  by  Nabu-bel-shumate,  Humbanigash  de¬ 
scended  upon  Uruk  and  with  lack  of  respect  trod  down  the 
Assyrian  land.  One  of  the  officials  stationed  at  Uruk  relates 
how  Humbanigash  entered  the  Hidalu  city  and  one  of  his  sons 
came  with  him  into  the  land  of  Parsua;  with  them  went  Nabu- 
qata-sabat,  ambassador  of  Shamash-shum-ukin,  and  a  mes- 
1  Klauber,  Texte ,  102;  Langdon,  Tammuz,  146.  2  H.  214. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  DUAL  MONARCHY  445 


senger  from  Rashu.  Ten  thousand  of  the  writer’s  clan  they 
killed,  and  now  he  is  in  Shama.1 

Ningal-shum-iddina  was  no  longer  governor  of  Ur;  his  place 
had  been  taken  by  his  son  Sin-tabni-usur.  Ashur-bani-apal 
was  not  without  suspicions  as  to  his  fidelity,  for  he  inquired 
whether,  if  he  should  be  placed  in  Ur,  he  would  remain  faith¬ 
ful,  or  whether  he  would  go  over  mouth  and  heart  to  Shamash- 
shum-ukin.  The  liver  omens  confirmed  his  choice.2 

Soon  after  he  appeared  in  Ur,  Sin-tabni-usur  wrote  Aplia, 
governor  of  Arrapha,  and  Nabu-ushabshi,  governor  of  Uruk, 
that  a  messenger  of  Shamash-shum-ukin  had  arrived  and  was 
stirring  up  rebellion  against  him.  The  Gurasimmu  had  re¬ 
volted  from  his  hands  and  if  he  were  not  quickly  reinforced 
he  would  succumb.  Nabu-ushabshi  collected  a  body  of  five 
or  six  hundred  bowmen  from  among  the  citizens  of  Uruk  and 
with  Aplia  and  Nurea,  governor  of  Zame  or  Mazamua,  went 
to  his  aid.  Nabu-ushabshi’s  son,  Nabu-zer-iddina,  was  sent 
against  the  Gurasimmu  and  delivered  Sin-tabni-usur  from 
their  hands;  five  or  six  of  their  chief  warriors  were  seized  and 
delivered  to  Aplia.  Bel-ibni  was  also  aiding  but  there  was 
danger  from  the  Puqudu;  however,  Kudur  and  the  people  of 
Uruk  were  now  safe  and  Nabu-ushezib  the  bowman  was  in 
charge.3 

Plunder  of  the  Sealands  is  reported  by  Sin-tabni-usur.  The 
Ekushai  are  ancient  subjects  of  his  father’s  house,  under  the 
protection  of  the  kings,  the  fathers  of  his  lord ;  they  feared  his 
father  Ningal-shum-iddina.  Now  some  of  them  have  sent 
to  their  kinsmen,  let  the  king  send  to  the  governor  that  their 
tribesmen  may  be  established  under  the  king’s  protection. 
As  to  Bel-uballit,  he  is  the  son  of  his  nurse,  together  they 
nursed  one  breast.4 

Then  Nabu-ushabshi  and  the  elders  of  Uruk  complain  that 
Sin-tabni-usur  is  attacking  the  people  of  Uruk  and  is  carrying 
off  the  plunder;  the  king  ought  not  to  forsake  the  blood  of  his 
servants.  When  he  slays  any  one,  Sin-tabni-usur  does  not 
allow  the  report  of  it  to  reach  the  king,  and  behold,  he  does 
1 H.  1309.  2  Klauber,  Texte,  135.  3  H.  754.  4  H.  920. 


446 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


slay  the  men  of  Uruk.  Let  the  king  act,  faithfully  establish¬ 
ing  the  feet  of  his  servants.1 

When  the  Puqudu  came  into  the  suburbs  of  Uruk,  they 
carried  off  ten  men.  Nabu-ushabshi  went  out  against  them 
and  made  a  slaughter  among  them.  He  questioned  their  com¬ 
mander  “Who  sent  you?”  and  received  the  reply  “Sahdu, 
brother  of  Nabu-ushezib,  sent  us  and  said:  ‘Go,  capture  a 
man  from  the  vicinity  of  Uruk  and  let  me  inquire  from  him 
why  they  have  assembled  so  large  a  number  of  Assyrian  troops 
at  Uruk  and  whither  is  their  journey.’  ”  He  has  had  disturb¬ 
ing  messages  from  the  Gurasimmu  and  the  Puqudu  bowmen 
have  gone  against  Bit  Ihtir.  Through  a  confederate  of  Sin- 
tabni-usur,  two  or  three  thousand  made  the  attack,  but  he 
has  raided  their  land  and  restored  some  of  the  booty.  He 
has  seen  Sin-tabni-usur,  he  writes  in  another  letter;  he  has 
sent  to  his  brother  Sin-bel-aheshu,  saying:  “Why  do  you 
hurl  men  against  me?  Cut  a  covenant.”  He  will  force  the 
brothers  of  Sin-shar-usur  to  enter  the  royal  presence.2 

This  Sin-shar-usur  was  governor  of  Hindanu  and  brother 
to  Sin-tabni-usur;  in  spite  of  his  relationship,  he  did  not  hesi¬ 
tate  to  accuse  his  brother  to  his  king.  Already  a  third  brother, 
Sin-balatsu-iqbi,  had  been  reported  to  Ashur-bani-apal  and 
Shamash-shum-ukin  had  warmly  taken  his  part.  Sin-tabni- 
usur  quite  naturally  protested  that  these  reports  were  false 
and  Ashur-bani-apal  sought  a  second  time  the  advice  of  the 
sun-god,  in  July,  651. 3 

Shamash  again  made  favourable  answer  and  the  king  re¬ 
plied  to  his  governor’s  complaints:  “How  could  Sin-shar-usur 
speak  evil  words  against  thee  and  I  listen  to  them?  Since 
Shamash  deranged  his  mind,  and  Humbanigash  has  slandered 
thee  before  me,  they  have  marked  thee  for  destruction,  but 
Ashur  my  god  keeps  me  far  from  it.  I  would  not  willingly 
kill  my  servant  and  the  foundation  of  my  father’s  house.  Is 
it  not  in  their  mind  that  thou  shouldst  perish  with  the  house 
of  thy  lord?  Would  I  wish  to  see  that?  He  and  Humbani- 

1  H.  753.  2  H.  1028;  974. 

3  H.  426;  445;  1207;  1248;  Klauber,  Texte,  129. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  DUAL  MONARCHY  447 


gash  have  plotted  thy  death  but  because  I  know  thy  loyalty 
I  have  conferred  upon  thee  more  favour  than  before.  These 
two  years  thou  hast  withstood  the  enemy  and  famine  for  the 
sake  of  thy  lord’s  house;  what  could  they  say  against  the  ser¬ 
vant  who  loves  his  master’s  house  and  I  believe  it  ?  As  to  the 
services  which  thou  and  thy  brothers,  the  Assyrians,  have 
rendered,  about  which  thou  hast  written,  that  which  thou 
hast  done  is  well,  the  guard  hast  thou  kept.  This  thy  path 
before  me  is  good,  and  favours  with  which  I  shall  requite  thee 
shall  be  unto  children’s  children.”  1 

Barely  had  Ashur-bani-apal  told  one  of  his  correspondents 
flatly  that  Sin-shar-usur  was  not  a  lover  of  Assyria,  "my  affairs 
are  brought  to  overthrow,”  when  Sin-shar-usur  was  proved 
the  true  friend  of  the  king  and  Sin-tabni-usur  went  over  to 
Shamash-shum-ukin.  The  citizens  of  Ur  were  more  loyal, 
but  they  were  hard-pressed  and  in  sad  need  of  aid.  “  Daily 
have  we  prayed  for  the  king  and  kept  his  watch;  for  my  hunger 
wilt  thou  make  me  eat  the  flesh  of  our  sons  and  daughters?” 
They  have  still  a  kindly  feeling  for  their  former  governor  and 
are  inclined  to  find  excuses  for  him.  “  Sin-tabni-usur  was  in 
the  service  of  the  king  with  us,  but  distress  and  hunger  have 
caused  him  to  revolt  and  to  take  the  feet  of  Shamash-shum- 
ukin.  Before  the  king  our  lord  he  did  not  come.  As  regards 
Sin-tabni-usur,  the  servant  of  the  judge  of  whom  the  king 
has  spoken,  the  king  will  surely  know.”2 

No  effective  answer  could  be  made  to  this  appeal  and  soon 
we  have  a  series  of  letters,  from  those  who  still  remained  loyal 
to  the  king  in  south  Babylonia,  which  presents  the  results  of 
this  inactivity.  The  men  of  Shattena  tell  how  these  many 
years  they  have  kept  the  watch  of  the  king.  The  cities  of  the 
Gurasimmu,  the  Puqudu,  and  the  Sealands  are  plundered, 
there  is  not  an  inhabited  city  left  there  except  Ur,  Nippur, 
Eridu,  and  Shattena.3 

Protests  of  loyalty  still  come  from  the  Gurasimmu:  aA 
sin  against  the  king  our  lord  have  we  not  committed;  let  him 
inquire  when  there  was  any  one  who  devastated  the  Sealands 

!H.  290.  2iL  1002;  1274;  cf.  1236.  3  H.  942. 


448 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


and  the  Puqudu  and  gave  tribute  to  thy  father  more  than 
the  Gurasimmu.  Quickly  we  shall  behold  Sin-shar-usur.”  1 

The  lie  to  this  claim  is  given  in  the  next  report  of  the  nobles 
of  Shattena:  “We  who  are  in  the  midst  of  Akkad  have  the 
Puqudu  opposed  to  us.  Unto  the  king  our  lord  have  we 
written,  troops  for  our  assistance  let  him  send.  The  Gura¬ 
simmu  were  loyal,  but  the  enemy  came  against  them;  because 
they  had  seen  this  and  because  news  from  Assyria  is  lacking 
and  because  none  of  the  governors  has  come  to  their  assistance, 
they  have  gone  over  to  the  enemy.  Eridu  and  Ur,  which  were 
left  to  Assyria,  have  chosen  to  go  over  to  the  enemy.  Now 
all  the  Gurasimmu  are  hostile;  there  is  not  a  city  among  them 
which  has  remained  loyal  to  Assyria  except  Ur  and  Kissik 
and  Shattena,  and  the  king  my  lord  knows  that  Ur  is  in  the 
midst  of  Akkad.  Because  of  its  pre-eminence  with  its  temples 
we  are  ruined.  The  Puqudu  and  the  Sealands  hate  us  and 
they  plan  evil  against  thy  temples.  With  slaughter  and  raids 
they  are  making  an  end  of  us,  everything  is  destroyed,  we 
shall  fall  into  their  hands.  Now  the  Puqudu,  the  Sealands, 
and  the  Gurasimmu  are  mustering,  they  have  risen  against 
us.  Let  the  king  our  lord  send  troops  for  the  protection  of 
his  temples.  The  treasures  which  the  kings  thy  fathers  gave 
to  Sin  will  the  enemy  capture  and  the  land  will  slip  away  from 
the  hand  of  the  king  and  the  land  of  Assyria  before  them.  The 
officials  of  the  king  lift  up  their  eyes  towards  the  for¬ 
tresses.”  2 

“As  we  entered  into  the  oaths  of  thy  father,  so  we  have 
entered  into  the  oath  of  our  lord.  Since  the  king  has  ordered 
us  to  send  whatever  we  see  or  hear,  the  troops  who  are  in  Uruk 
have  sinned  a  sin  against  the  king.  When  the  men  of  Uruk 
saw  it,  they  told  us,  and  we  according  to  their  report  send 
to  the  king.  Behold,  we  are  sending  the  rebels  and  witnesses 
to  the  king,  and  when  they  are  before  the  king,  let  him  ask 
them.  The  complaints  of  the  king  I  have  heard,  let  a  mes¬ 
senger  of  the  king  come,  let  him  ask  me.  Zer-ukin,  son  of 
Labashi,  speaks  thus:  ‘That  which  I  have  heard  when  the 
1  H.  947.  2  H.  1241. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  DUAL  MONARCHY  449 


king  made  me  hear,  the  lands  sinned.’  Behold,  the  son  of 
Ishi-etir  has  come,  before  he  escapes;  lest  he  flee,  let  the  king 
raise  his  head  and  ask  him.”  1 
About  this  time  we  have  a  letter  to  the  queen  mother  from 
Naid  Marduk,  king  of  the  Sealands,  giving  the  news  of  Elam.. 
The  enemy  has  seized  the  bridge — at  least,  that  is  what  a  mes¬ 
senger  states,  though  he  has  not  yet  sent  out  his  own  scouts. 
Let  the  bridge  be  restored  and  the  bolts  strengthened.  Sin- 
tabni-usur  has  taken  the  side  of  Humbanigash.  At  the  end 
of  July,  his  messenger  reached  Naid  Marduk  on  the  border; 
he  will  forward  him  to  the  palace.  Let  his  lord  know  that  his 
heart  is  perfect  with  the  house  of  his  lord.2 

This  letter  was  the  last  from  the  aged  ruler,  for  soon  after 
we  read  another  from  old  and  young  of  the  country.  Once 
and  twice  the  messengers  of  Tep  Humban,  brother  of  the  king 
of  Elam,  the  nagir  official,  and  Zineni,  have  come  to  them  and 
say:  “Come,  receive  Nabu-ushallim,  the  son  of  your  lord,  to 
you  may  he  come.”  They  refused  to  receive  this  brother  of 
Naid  Marduk  and  son  of  Merodach  Baladan,  but  declared: 
“Naid  Marduk,  our  lord,  is  alive,  and  servants  of  the  king  of 
Assyria  are  we.  Would  you  make  him  noble  in  the  land,  send 
him  to  the  king  of  Assyria;  if  it  please  him,  let  the  king  make 
him  great,  do  you  send  him  into  the  house.  We  shall  not  sin; 
over  us  shall  he  not  be  prince.”  They  were  sending  him  with 
bound  hands  to  the  Assyrian  king  when  the  Targibatu,  the 
men  of  the  stream,  the  Dutai  and  the  Banu,  seized  a  field  be¬ 
longing  to  them  and  gave  it  to  him.  Now  his  messengers  have 
come  before  the  elders  of  the  Sealands,  saying:  “Come  up 
to  my  face,  send  down  troops  to  the  Sealands;  if  you  do  not 
come  up  to  my  face  and  do  not  speak,  I  will  come  to  your  land 
and  will  destroy  your  homes.  Of  a  truth  shall  ye  say:  ‘The 
face  of  the  king  of  Assyria  we  fear.’  ”  3 

Messengers  have  come  from  the  king  of  Elam,  requesting 
that  they  make  Nabu-ushallim  their  king.  He  adds:  “I  have 
news  of  Naid  Marduk,  he  is  dead;  you  are  my  men  and  not 
the  men  of  the  king  of  Assyria;  over  you  he  shall  not  reign.” 

2 II.  917.  3  H.  576. 


1  H.  472. 


450 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


When  Nabu-ushallim  conquered  the  Targibatu  people,  one  of 
their  men  was  on  guard  among  the  men  on  the  Inazaru  River. 
Nabu-ushallim  discovered  him  and  despatched  him  to  the 
king  of  Elam,  who  talked  with  him  and  returned  him  to  the 
Sealands;  since  they  were  loyal  servants  of  the  Assyrian  king, 
they  forwarded  the  messenger  to  him.  Their  conclusion  is  a 
complaint:  “Why  must  we  send  once  and  twice  to  the  king 
our  lord?”  The  sequel  to  this  neglect  is  found  in  a  third  letter 
giving  news  of  Iakin;  Nabu-ushallim  has  crossed  to  that  region 
and  the  cities  are  being  taken  by  him.  Sillai  also  reports  that 
he  is  on  his  way  with  an  Elamite  army.1 

Meanwhile,  Ashur-bani-apal  had  been  attempting  to  hold 
Nabu-ushallim  and  that  gentleman  had  been  playing  a  double 
game.  The  king  has  complained  about  the  Aramaeans  on  the 
Harri  River  near  Uruk  and  Nabu-ushallim  attempts  to  throw 
the  blame  on  some  one  else.  “0  ye  gods  of  the  king,  in  spite 
of  the  many  men  of  good-will  whom  the  son  of  Iakin  oppresses, 
we  shall  hear  peace  at  his  mouth.  Let  the  king  send  to  them, 
let  him  not  send  the  servants  of  the  king,  they  are  not  trust¬ 
worthy.”  The  messengers  of  the  sons  of  Zeruai  have  come  for 
reports  of  the  king  and  spoke  to  the  land;  let  a  king’s  messenger 
come  to  offset  their  intrigue  with  the  Mamai.  He  has  col¬ 
lected  much  straw.2 

After  all,  Nabu-ushallim  did  not  secure  the  Sealands;  when 
next  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  them,  they  are  ruled  by  Nabu-bel- 
shumate,  the  nephew  of  Naid  Marduk,  and  so  grandson  of 
Merodach  Baladan.  He  is  continuously  sending  his  mes¬ 
senger  to  ask  the  welfare  of  the  king.  The  kindness  of  a  father 
to  a  son,  is  it  not  true  that  thus  the  king  has  done  for  him  and 
for  his  people?  He  loads  his  letters  with  the  most  fulsome 
wishes  for  cheer  of  heart,  health  of  body,  and  length  of  days 
from  the  gods.  He  has  heard  that  the  king  of  Elam  is  op¬ 
pressive,  that  many  of  the  cities  have  abandoned  his  cause, 
saying:  “We  will  not  come  into  thy  hands.”  The  robbers 
and  fugitives,  who  came  to  the  Gurasimmu,  five  hundred  in 
number,  were  captured  by  Sin-balatsu-iqbi,  still  another 
1  H.  1114;  1131.  2R.  747  ff.;  527;  1011. 


THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  DUAL  MONARCHY  451 


brother  of  Sin-tabni-usur,  and  were  handed  over  to  Natan, 
whom  the  Assyrians  had  made  king  of  the  Utta  tribe.  Hither¬ 
to  the  king  has  not  believed  what  he  wrote,  now  Lala,  king  of 
the  Bazu  tribe,  is  before  the  king,  let  him  be  asked,  let  the 
crown  prince  bring  his  servants.1 

Nabu-bel-shumate  did  not  long  keep  up  the  pretence.  Mes¬ 
sengers  were  sent  by  him  to  Shamash-shum-ukin,  he  went 
down  to  the  Gurasimmu,  persuaded  them  to  change  their 
king,  and  led  them  to  revolt.2  Near  the  end  of  March,  651, 
Ashur-bani-apal  sent  to  his  faithful  “ reporters,”  Ashur-danin- 
sharri  and  Danai,  who  had  taken  up  their  official  abode  in  the 
“New  Palace.”  “Nabu-bel-shumate,  who  has  not  guarded 
the  welfare  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  Assyria,  the  creature 
of  thy  hands,  his  lord,  who  has  spoken  contemptuously  of  thy 
great  name  and  has  despised  it  in  his  haughtiness,  now  has 
Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  Assyria,  heard  as  follows:  ‘He  has 
collected  his  archers  in  Elam.’  Will  he  advance,  will  he  fight 
with  the  troops,  the  warriors  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  As¬ 
syria,  either  with  the  Assyrians  or  the  Akkadians  or  the  Chal- 
dseans  or  the  Ahlame  who  have  taken  the  feet  of  Ashur-bani- 
apal,  the  creation  of  thy  hands?  Will  he  make  battle  and 
defeat  them  ?  Grant  that  he  may  not  set  forth  or  make  a  stop 
in  Elam  or  in  his  own  land,  either  to  fright  them  or  to  assist 
them,  and  into  the  territory  may  they  not  enter.” 

The  sheep’s  liver  was  inspected  with  the  discouraging  re¬ 
sult:  “If  there  is  a  station,  the  path  double,  and  the  left  path 
lies  on  the  right  path,  the  enemy  will  cause  his  weapons  to  rage 
over  the  weapons  of  the  prince;  if  a  finger  lies  on  the  right  side 
of  the  station,  there  will  be  a  downfall  of  the  army,  or  of  the 
temple;  if  the  left  side  of  the  gall-bladder  has  grown  fast,  thy 
foot  shall  tread  down  the  enemy;  if  the  finger  is  normal,  if 
the  back  part  of  the  liver  is  damaged  to  the  right,  there  shall 
be  damage  to  the  head  and  a  change  of  allegiance  in  the  army; 
if  the  lower  part  goes,  if  something  is  on  the  crown  and  the 
middle  finger  of  the  liver  is  loose  in  its  foundation,  when  some¬ 
thing  is  bright,  the  inside  of  the  sheep  normal;  here  are  five 
832  ff.  2  H.  1326;  1236. 


452 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


unfavourable  signs,  not  a  single  good  one  has  been  preserved; 
as  a  whole,  the  report  is  unfavourable.” 

An  inquiry  as  to  the  king’s  health  continued  the  series  on 
the  26th  of  the  next  month.  The  reply  was  overwhelming: 
“If  the  station  is  preserved,  the  path  doubled,  the  arms  lie, 
there  shall  be  a  change  of  orders,  derangement  of  mind,  the 
journey  you  plan  will  be  a  failure,  another  time  you  shall  set 
forth,  the  command  of  the  king  will  be  without  effect  in  the 
assembly,  a  second  time  they  will  abstain;  if  it  is  concerning 
the  exercise  of  the  healing  craft,  the  physician  shall  not  so 
much  as  lay  his  hand  on  the  sick,  the  seer  shall  not  undertake 
an  incantation.”  When  such  disheartening  omens  were  re¬ 
ceived,  we  can  understand  why  the  situation  was  not  handled 
with  greater  firmness.1 

1  Klauber,  Texte,  105  f. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 

Bel-ibni,  the  Chaldsean,  was  a  descendant  of  that  Mero- 
dach  Baladan  who  had  gathered  in  his  own  person  all  those 
earlier  claims  to  the  rule  of  Babylon  inherent  in  the  Iakin  tribe. 
His  own  name  he  probably  received  from  the  Bel-ibni  who 
had  been  Sennacherib’s  puppet  king.  His  father  was  Nabu- 
kudurri-usur,  and  it  is  all  but  certain  that  the  greater  Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar,  to  use  his  Biblical  name,  was  his  grandson.  The 
family  seems  to  have  been  settled  in  Borsippa,  for  it  is  from 
thence  that  Nabu-kudurri-usur  indites  a  letter  to  the  effect 
that  on  the  morrow  Tashmetum,  the  warrior  of  the  gods,  will 
go  out  in  procession  and  will  take  up  her  residence  in  the  New 
Year’s  House,  where  sacrifices  will  be  offered  to  her.  After 
she  has  loosened  her  girdle,  at  evening  she  will  return  to  her 
own  dwelling  again  and  will  give  blessing  to  the  king.1 

A  similar  peaceful  appearance  brings  Bel-ibni  for  the  first 
time  on  the  scene.  In  the  fifteenth  year  of  Shamash-shum- 
ukin,  Bel-ibni’s  son  Shamash-iddina  acts  as  witness  to  a  loan 
made  at  Nagitu  near  Babylon  by  Nabu-bel-shumate,  with 
whom  Bel-ibni  was  to  wage  unending  feud.  Nabu-kudurri- 
usur  likewise  has  a  good  word  for  Nabu-bel-shumate. 

When  next  Bel-ibni  appears,  he  is  sadly  in  disgrace.  He 
sends  duplicate  letters  to  the  king  to  beg  pardon  and  to  the 
commander-in-chief  to  intercede  for  him;  the  hands  of  the 
commander-in-chief  he  has  seized,  let  him  not  be  put  to  shame. 
“Since  at  the  first,  I  did  not  appear  before  the  face  of  the  king, 
it  was  because  those  who  arrived  from  Elam  to  secure  pardon 
for  themselves  slandered  me  in  the  palace;  every  one  of  my 
enemies  from  Elam  prepared  evil  words  against  me  and  wrote 
to  the  court.  When  I  heard  of  this,  I  was  afraid  and  did  not 
come.  Now  I  desire  the  royal  service.  As  many  as  formerly 

1  H.  858  f. 

453 


454 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


sinned,  the  king  thy  father  forgave  their  sins;  however  much 
they  have  slandered  me  in  the  palace,  I  have  in  no  manner 
committed  sin.  From  the  hands  of  the  king  may  they  not 
take  me;  by  the  mouth  of  the  king  my  lord  may  it  be  said  that 
I  should  not  fear  before  the  face  of  the  king  my  lord  and  may 
the  king  count  me  among  his  servants.  May  the  signs  of  the 
service  of  the  king  my  lord  be  extended  to  me,  may  I  not  be 
made  ashamed  before  the  Babylonians,  my  brothers,  may 
not  my  head  be  laid  low.  The  sign  of  signs  from  the  king  my 
lord  may  I  see.  In  this  shall  we  trust;  I  and  my  brothers,  my 
sons,  and  my  dependants  will  come;  the  feet  of  the  king  our 
lord  we  will  kiss,  the  service  of  the  king  our  lord  we  will  as¬ 
sume.  May  I  hear  a  reliable  word  from  the  king?”  1 

One  of  his  chief  enemies  was  Kudur.  Iqisha,  the  physician 
whom  the  king  sent  to  heal  him,  has  restored  him  to  life.  He 
was  about  to  go  and  see  the  face  of  the  king  that  he  might  add 
to  his  life  and  live,  but  the  chief  baker  met  him  on  the  journey, 
and  forced  him  to  return  to  Uruk  to  receive  a  sealed  order 
from  the  palace.  He  forwards  the  complaint  of  the  gate  official 
to  the  effect  that  Bel-ibni ’s  family  are  not  lovers  of  the  king’s 
house,  it  is  not  good  that  they  should  pass  over  to  Uruk.  An¬ 
other  official  is  even  more  emphatic:  “Bel-ibni  is  a  liar  and 
the  king  my  lord  knows  it;  from  the  time  the  king  gave  the 
Sealands  to  Nabu-kudurri-usur,  his  son  Bel-ibni  has  not  pre¬ 
sented  himself.  For  this  he  hates  us,  maligning  words  he 
speaks,  let  not  the  king  trust  the  words  of  his  mouth.”2 

Despite  such  strong  opposition,  the  king  did  listen  to  the 
words  of  his  mouth.  Bel-ibni  and  his  family  were  too  power¬ 
ful  to  be  punished  on  mere  suspicion.  His  father’s  govern¬ 
ment  was  confirmed  to  him,  and  near  the  end  of  April,  650, 
the  Assyrian  monarch  issued  his  proclamation  to  the  people 
of  the  Sealands,  old  and  young,  announcing  that  Bel-ibni, 
the  King’s  Companion,  had  been  appointed  to  the  rule  of  their 
country.  Let  them  do  at  once  what  is  in  the  sealed  order  to 
the  Sealanders.  He  is  by  no  means  sure  of  Bel-ibni’ s  reception, 
for  he  adds:  “ Behold,  now,  the  pupil  of  my  eye  is  upon  you. 

1  H.  283;  793.  2  H.  274;  277;  1106. 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 


455 


I  have  separated  you  from  the  sin  of  Nabu-bel-shumate  and 
the  courtesan  of  Menanu.  You  shall  see  the  fate  of  servants 
who  steal  the  possessions  of  their  masters,  for  is  it  not  right 
that  I  should  take  them  away  and  send  my  army,  that  they 
may  make  a  reckoning?  Your  land  and  your  devotedness  is 
before  me.”  1 

The  first  task  of  Bel-ibni  was  the  securing  of  Nabu-bel- 
shumate.  Originally,  so  he  reports,  he  came  with  his  father 
and  son  from  Urtaku  and  killed  his  brother  Bel-li;  when  Hum- 
banigash  attacked  Uruk,  Nabu-bel-shumate  followed  after 
him,  he  trod  down  the  Assyrian  land  with  lack  of  respect,  and 
carried  off  to  Elam  all  the  possessions  of  Bel-ibni’s  family. 
After  his  father,  a  sinner  against  the  oath  of  loyalty  to  the 
Assyrian  king,  had  died  in  Elam,  Nabu-bel-shumate  forsook 
the  place  of  sin  where  he  had  sinned,  but  otherwise  he  took 
no  action.  Ashur-bani-apal  sent  a  sealed  letter  to  Bel-ibni 
and  Aplia  to  order  that  the  people  of  the  land  should  collect; 
the  letter  was  stolen  and  the  thief  gave  it  to  Nabu-bel-shumate, 
who  has  not  even  taken  the  trouble  to  declare  that  he  is  a  lover 
of  the  Assyrian  land.  Since  he  is  an  enemy  of  Assyria,  Bel- 
ibni  has  not  sent  to  him ;  let  him  rather  make  declaration  be¬ 
fore  Ashur:  “I  am  an  enemy  of  Assyria.”  They  have  not 
summoned  the  men  from  Kudur,  they  are  assembling  them 
to  Bel-ibni  and  make*  them  take  the  oath.2 

As  a  result,  Ashur-bani-apal  followed  up  his  proclamation 
to  the  Sealanders  with  another  to  Bel-ibni  and  the  citizens  of 
Nippur  and  for  good  measure  forwarded  a  duplicate  to  Nabu- 
ushabshi  and  the  men  of  Uruk.  He  reminds  them  how  with 
the  iron  dagger  of  Ashur  his  lord  he  has  destroyed  the  land 
with  fire,  and  how  when  they  had  gone  forth  and  trampled 
down  the  land,  it  turned  its  face  towards  the  king.  They  are 
to  keep  watch  for  Nabu-bel-shumate  and  to  seize  all  his  fol¬ 
lowers;  like  a  winnower  at  the  gate  they  are  to  sift  them.  He 
may  change  his  scheme  of  escape,  so  every  one  should  be  ques¬ 
tioned.  Whoever  allows  him  to  escape  shall  be  deprived  of 
descendants;  if  he  is  taken,  dead  or  alive,  his  captor  will  be 
1  H.  289.  2  H.  998. 


456 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


laid  on  a  balance  and  his  weight  given  in  gold,  even  as  Sen¬ 
nacherib  gave  Adad-baraka  his  weight  in  silver  for  the  capture 
of  Shuzub.1  Why  do  they  hesitate?  He  has  written  them, 
they  are  commissioned,  let  them  see  that  they  bind  him  ere 
he  escape.2 

No  one  was  to  receive  this  royal  reward;  Nabu-bel-shumate 
made  good  his  escape  and  took  with  him  many  an  Assyrian 
noble  as  prisoner,  among  them  Bel-shunu,  brother  of  Bel- 
ibni.  The  king  inquired  his  fate  of  Enlil-bani  in  Nippur,  but 
the  messenger  could  not  reach  Bel-shunu  or  speak  to  him. 
Rumour,  however,  states  that  Nabu-bel-shumate  put  him  in 
prison.  Shum-iddina,  whom  the  king  had  commissioned  gov¬ 
ernor  of  Marad,  is  now  with  Enlil-bani.  There  are  many 
tongues  in  Nippur  under  the  protection  of  the  king;  Enlil- 
bani  fulfils  the  orders  of  the  king  and  confers  with  them. 
Ashur-bel-taqqin,  the  governor  of  Nippur,  has  been  intrusted 
with  the  forwarding  of  the  sealed  orders  and  the  messenger 
of  the  king,  but  when  they  arrive  he  sits  idle  three  and  four 
days  and  pays  no  attention  to  them.  When  Enlil-bani  taxed 
him  with  this,  “The  men  of  Nippur  and  of  the  entire  land 
ridicule  us/’  he  only  turned  his  hand  against  the  writer.3 

Men  of  Tabal  are  in  the  fort.  Ashur-bel-taqqin  gave  the 
writer  what  news  he  had  heard.  The  Gurasimmu  who  were 
with  him  set  their  face  to  the  harvest,  and  when  he  fled,  he 
entered  Babylon.  The  other  Ashur-bel-taqqin  was  at  the  ford 
of  the  river  to  meet  him  when  he  heard  of  his  coming ;  the  first 
Ashur-bel-taqqin  heard  of  this,  after  he  had  sent  his  tribute, 
he  did  not  approach  him  until  Ashur-bel-taqqin  died,  he  did 
not  enter  the  Gurasimmu,  then  he  destroyed  the  house  of 
the  sender.  According  to  Urta-ahi-iddina,  Enlil-bani  and  the 
bowmen  of  Nippur  stand  in  the  watch  where  the  king  appointed 
him,  and  he  himself  keeps  the  watch  in  his  rear  in  the  city  of 
Bit  Sheri.4 

For  the  present,  the  escape  of  Nabu-bel-shumate  seemed 
more  than  compensated  by  the  freeing  of  south  Babylonia. 


1  Cf.  p.  292. 
3  H.  238. 


2R.  292;  297. 
4  H.  967;  797. 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 


457 


Bel-ibni  received  a  rescript:  “Go  as  turtanu  over  the  troops, 
to  the  Sealands  go  down.”  1  Soon  there  came  a  hymn  of  re¬ 
joicing  from  the  fortunate  governor:  “The  many  good  things 
which  from  the  beginning  the  king  my  lord  has  done  me  and 
has  caused  to  be  given  me,  who  am  a  dead  dog,  the  son  of  a 
nobody,  the  king  has  made  to  live.  All  their  fulness  I  cannot 
find  out.  And  behold  these  great  kindnesses,  which  the  king 
my  lord  has  given  me  and  done,  the  setting  up  of  the  house  of 
Merodach  Baladan,  the  king  my  lord  has  given.  What  re¬ 
quital  could  I  make  to  the  king  my  lord,  even  if  I  were  to  die, 
than  to  pray  the  great  gods  of  heaven  and  earth  for  life  and 
length  of  days  for  the  king  my  lord,  and  the  blood  of  my  lambs 
for  the  guard  of  the  king  my  lord  will  I  give.  Now  will  the 
king  my  lord  see  the  loyalty  of  his  servant  to  the  house  of  his 
master.  What  am  I  when  I  keep  the  watch  of  the  king  my 
lord?  A  slave  subduing  sin,  a  lance  head  in  the  hand  of  the 
king  my  lord  am  I.  The  king  my  lord  has  placed  me  in 
heaven.” 

This  ebullition  over,  he  returns  to  business  and  states  that 
on  the  16th  of  the  month  he  came  with  the  official  who  is  over 
the  palace  to  the  city  of  Kissik,  where  there  assembled  to  him 
many  of  the  Sealanders  who  professed  to  be  the  king’s  ser¬ 
vants.  On  the  next  day  he  made  them  take  the  oath  and  on 
the  third  he  went  to  the  Sealands  themselves,  which  are  now 
entirely  won  back  to  the  service  of  the  king.2 

The  citizens  of  Kissik  felt  quite  differently.  They  had  been 
assured  by  the  king  that  when  they  were  set  free  before  his 
gods,  the  skilled  workmen  who  were  with  them  were  also  freed. 
When  he  learned  that  the  enemy  were  encamped  against  them, 
he  gave  additional  command:  “Whoever  deserts  to  you,  re¬ 
ceive  and  send  on  to  me.”  When,  therefore,  the  Nuhanua 
deserted  to  them,  they  were  received  and  they  made  report: 
“The  Puqudu  are  divided.”  They  were  forwarded  to  the 
king.  Since  the  time  when  Sin  and  Nergal,  the  king’s  gods, 
completely  delivered  his  enemy  into  his  hands,  his  hands  shall 
take  them  all,  as  many  as  there  are,  and  the  bow  of  the  king 

2  H.  521. 


1  H.  795. 


458 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


they  have  not  let  go.  All  the  Chaldseans  tremble.  The  men 
of  Kissik  are  the  king’s  dogs,  no  one  can  turn  them  away 
through  the  word  of  an  enemy.  The  enemy  went  down  to  the 
Sealands  and  the  post  of  Bel-ibni,  who  is  at  the  head  of  the 
boundary  of  the  Sealands,  but  Bel-ibni  restrains  the  men  of 
Kissik  from  advancing  against  the  invaders.1 

Again  they  invoke  Sin  and  Nergal  as  they  relate  the  sad 
fate  of  their  brethren  at  the  hands  of  Bel-ibni.  When  they 
escaped  from  their  prison-house  in  Elam,  whither  Nabu-bel- 
shumate  had  carried  them,  they  returned  to  the  Sealand  and 
felt  at  ease,  for  they  thought:  “This  is  the  king’s  domain.” 
But  Bel-ibni  seized  them  and  drove  them  out,  though  the  king 
of  Elam  had  not  descended;  let  Darri-sharru,  who  brought 
them  forth  from  the  prison-house,  be  witness.  The  king  should 
realise  that  all  men  hate  the  citizens  of  Kissik,  they  reproach 
them:  “You  hear  a  stupid  report  and  send  it  on  to  the  king.” 
They  have  sent  their  brethren  of  Kissik  to  the  king  to  ask  for 
justice.2 

Nabu-ushabshi  puts  a  different  aspect  on  the  matter.  Ten 
years  before,  Bel-etir  and  his  son  Pir  Amurru  went  to  Elam. 
Shortly  after,  they  returned  and  whatever  was  evil  for  As¬ 
syria  they  practised  in  Uruk.  They  were  forced  to  retire  to 
Elam,  where  Bel-etir  died,  but  Pir  Amurru  reappeared  in  Uruk 
in  November  with  letters  for  himself  and  Aplia.  He  may  be 
expected  to  say  that  he  has  come  direct  from  Elam;  let  not 
the  king  believe  him,  he  has  not  been  back  since  November 
when  Nabu-ushabshi  forwarded  to  his  master  the  letters  he 
brought.  If  the  king  desires  confirmation  in  this  matter,  let 
him  ask  Idua,  the  servant  of  Kudur;  since  he  has  been  in  Uruk 
and  this  matter  happened  at  his  side  and  before  his  face,  he 
shall  inform  the  king  how  full  of  lies  are  these  letters.  If  the 
king  does  not  yet  understand  the  letters  sent  by  the  guards¬ 
man  Darri-sharru  in  November,  let  him  ask  him.3 

A  revolt  in  Elam  supplanted  Humbanigash  by  Tammaritu; 
the  Assyrian  relief  professed  to  show  the  head  of  Humbani-  * 
gash,  cut  off  by  Tammaritu  in  the  midst  of  the  battle,  but  it 
1 H.  210.  2  H.  736. 


3  H.  266. 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 


459 


was  not  in  the  Assyrian  interest,  for  he  said:  “ Shall  they  cut 
off  the  head  of  a  king  of  Elam  in  the  midst  of  his  troops  ?  Why 
should  Humbanigash  kiss  the  ground  before  the  ambassadors 
of  the  king  of  Assyria  ?” 

A  letter  has  arrived  from  Kudur;  it  states  that  Tammaritu 
is  about  to  lead  his  troops  against  Assyria.  Is  the  report  true 
and  worthy  of  dependence?  From  the  1st  of  March  to  the 
1st  of  the  next  month  shall  the  troops  of  Tammaritu  make 
war  against  the  border  of  Assyria,  shall  they  come  to  Nippur? 
When  the  Puqudu  hear  this  report,  will  they  revolt  ?  1 

How  low  Assyrian  influence  fell  is  shown  by  two  letters, 
partial  duplicates,  which  Ashur-bani-apal  wrote  to  the  south 
Babylonian  tribe  of  the  Rashi.  In  an  almost  imploring  tone 
he  asks:  “How  have  I  fared  in  my  love  for  Elam?  I  have 
loved  my  true  friend,  even  my  enemy  have  I  not  defamed. 
I  have  shown  kindness  to  every  one,  yet  they  have  done  evil 
to  me.  In  the  days  of  Urtaku,  there  was  a  famine  in  Elam,” 
and  he  granted  them  aid.  “Then  there  were  the  fugitives, 
both  kings  and  nobles,  whom  I  received ;  I  gave  them  food  and 
drink,  I  brought  them  back  to  their  land.  They,  however, 
have  put  in  chains  my  messengers  whom  I  sent  to  greet  them, 
they  have  made  alliance  with  my  revolted  servants.”  “My 
advocate  has  spoken  judgment,  through  the  mouth  of  the 
gods,  his  ears  have  caught  a  true  word  from  the  god:  ‘Let 
him  come  and  with  Tammaritu  seize  the  river.’  Is  it  not  true 
that  as  I  pray  to  Ashur  and  Marduk,  so  it  will  be  done,  that 
my  wrath  may  be  satisfied?”  2 

Marduk-shar-usur  was  in  command  of  the  troops  operating 
in  central  Babylonia.  Through  fear,  he  collected  a  force  suf¬ 
ficient  to  bring  to  an  end  the  sway  of  Tammaritu,  but  he  left 
behind  a  series  of  complaints  of  oppression.  Hidalu  and 
Iahdik  were  occupied  by  the  Elamite  but  Bel-etir  and  the 
qadu  officials  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Assyrian  general.  The 
Parsua  were  in  Elamite  employ  and  the  rebels  begged  that 
they  be  sent  quickly  thither.3 

Nabu-ushabshi,  governor  of  Uruk,  regularly  begins  his  letters 

1  //.  1195.  2  H.  295;  1260.  3  H.  960  ff. 


460 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


with  the  pious  hope  that  the  deified  Uruk  and  its  temple  Eanna 
may  be  gracious  to  his  lord.  Daily  to  Ishtar  of  Uruk  and  to 
Nana  he  will  pray.  He  sends  letters  in  duplicate  about  the 
sheep  of  the  temple  and  of  the  Puqudu  city;  he  has  learned 
from  the  shepherds  that  they  are  detained  in  the  city  of  the 
Rua.  In  memory  of  the  horse  once  beloved  by  the  passionate 
goddess,  three  white  horses  with  silver  trappings  and  copper 
fittings  have  been  brought  into  her  sanctuary;  on  the  trap¬ 
pings  was  written:  “From  Tammaritu;  sent  by  the  king  of 
Elam  to  Ishtar  of  Uruk.”  Nabu-ushabshi  feared  before  the 
face  of  his  lord;  he  retained  the  horses  but  forwarded  to  As¬ 
syria  the  shepherds  and  the  fittings.1 

A  deep  impression  was  made  on  the  king’s  mind  by  the 
wonder  of  these  white  horses,  for  we  find  him  complaining 
that  they  had  not  yet  arrived.  The  letter  continued  with 
matters  of  more  moment  than  white  horses.  He  has  learned 
that  his  orders  have  not  been  carried  out  and  Nabu-ushabshi 
has  sent  no  explanation,  he  has  merely  asked:  “What  is  my 
sin?”  Ashur-bani-apal  is  very  careful  to  point  out  that  there 
has  been  no  sin  on  the  part  of  Nabu-ushabshi,  it  is  the  sin  of 
his  clan;  the  governors  and  prefects  did  not  go  or  take  their 
stand  with  him,  and  so  the  work  was  left  undone.  Nabu- 
ushabshi  had  hinted  that  the  king  had  no  love  for  Uruk  and 
reported  that  the  Gurasimmu  had  revolted  from  the  hands  of 
the  king.  When  he  saw  the  guard  was  without  strength  and 
was  as  one  dead,  the  king  ordered  its  removal.  The  king  has 
no  fear  for  Nabu-ushabshi,  since  the  governors  of  Arrapha 
and  of  Lahiru  are  with  him.  Whatever  is  good  to  do,  that 
let  him  do,  whether  it  is  to  dam  the  Harri  River  or  to  trample 
down  the  men.  In  answer  to  a  second  letter,  the  two  captains 
Bel-etir  and  Arbaia  are  sent  with  two  hundred  men;  let  them 
take  their  position  by  his  side  and  with  him  carry  on  the  work.2 

The  men  fear,  the  waters  are  high,  the  people  drink  from 
the  waters.  Nabu-ushabshi  will  see  Sabda.  Let  the  king 
inquire  of  Bel-ibni,  the  Sealander,  for  news  of  the  lower  city 
of  the  Puqudu;  he  has  gone  out,  he  was  stationed  with  Nabu- 

lH.  268;  751,  2H.  1108;  543;  273;  1244. 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 


461 


ushabshi  for  several  months.  As  to  the  brother  of  Shum-ukin 
and  Aheshai,  about  whom  the  king  sent,  the  guard  has  brought 
them  according  to  the  royal  order.  In  large  measure,  those 
who  are  over  their  men  as  well  as  Aheshai  do  not  love  the  As¬ 
syrian  land.  They  resisted  Esarhaddon,  the  king’s  father.1 

Arad  Nana,  the  guardsman,  by  whose  hands  the  king  had 
sent  a  sealed  order  about  Der,  was  on  the  road  to  Nippur, 
but  when  his  servants  heard  that  he  was  ill,  they  forsook  him 
and  went  to  Uruk.  Nabu-ushabshi  cast  down  and  seized  the 
servants  and  the  men  of  Nippur  who  forsook  him  and  de¬ 
spatched  them  to  the  king.2 

“I  am  a  dead  dog  and  am  anxious  to  behold  the  face  of  the 
king,  for  when  I  see  the  face  of  the  king  I  shall  live  again,  and 
I  who  am  in  want  shall  prosper.  When  I  stood  before  the 
king,  since  I  was  fearful,  my  words  did  not  come  at  once  and 
I  did  not  speak  with  the  king.  As  for  Kudur,  son  of  Nabu- 
nasir,  I  and  he  and  all  our  brethren  have  kept  the  watch  of 
the  king;  our  houses  on  account  of  the  service  of  the  king  of 
lands  our  lord  are  in  ruins.”  3 

Perhaps  it  is  Kudur  who  writes  the  delegate  that  the  Puqudu 
who  dwell  on  the  Kadannu  River  send  their  messengers  daily 
to  the  son  of  Iakin.  Let  the  delegate  send  to  the  governor 
and  let  Tugibi-ilu  of  the  Amukkanu,  who  dwell  in  the  house 
of  the  shepherd,  go  down  to  them.  If  he  gives  them  into  the 
hand  of  the  delegate,  then  is  he  the  delegate’s  servant;  if  he 
does  not  so  deliver  them,  then  let  the  delegate  know  that  his 
heart  is  not  with  the  delegate.  When  the  delegate  sent 
Salamu  to  Nabu-ushabshi,  Nabu-ushabshi  was  taken  and 
sent  to  the  delegate.  He  is  his  true  servant.4 

The  queen  mother  is  assured  by  Aplia  that  he  prays  day 
and  night  to  Nabu  and  Nana  for  life  and  length  of  days.  May 
the  queen  mother  see  it.  A  messenger  reporting  grace  from 
Bel  and  Nabu  has  come  to  the  king  of  lands.  The  grain  of 
the  harvest  and  the  beasts  of  burden  are  prepared.  Fugitives 
have  escaped  to  Elam  and  refuse  to  return.  The  king  will 
surely  ask  why  he  has  not  previously  reported  the  loss;  he 

1 H.  752.  2  H.  866.  3  H.  880.  4  H.  1052. 


462 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


feared  the  wrath  of  the  king’s  heart,  for  he  said:  “ Behold, 
he  will  slay  me.”  1 

The  sons  of  Bel-iddina,  the  sons  of  the  deceiver,  the  sons  of 
the  murderer,  have  been  seized  on  the  road  to  Babylon  and 
are  being  sent  to  the  king.  To  him  they  pretended  to  be  fugi¬ 
tives,  but  Aplia  very  solemnly  assures  his  master:  “Very 
great  are  their  misdeeds  before  the  king.”  Shnla,  the  governor 
of  Dilbat  appointed  by  Shamash-shum-ukin,  is  the  son  of 
their  sister,  and  the  men  of  Dilbat  are  in  rebellion.  When 
Shamash-shum-ukin  went  out  against  the  city  of  Kar  Nergal, 
one  of  the  king’s  forts,  Aplia  was  in  the  royal  camp.  When 
Zamama-eriba  went  out  with  Shamash-shum-ukin,  he  killed 
Rimanni-ilu,  the  musharkis  official,  and  took  his  robes.  When 
he  broke  out  of  Babylon  and  fled  to  the  king’s  camp,  he  de¬ 
clared:  “The  turban  which  is  on  my  head  is  that  of  Rimanni- 
ilu,  the  musharkis.”  The  turban  on  his  head  came  to  the  king; 
it  is  that  of  Rimanni-ilu.  These  men  are  not  friends  of  Assyria, 
they  are  enemies.  When  they  do  such  things,  whether  good 
or  evil,  Aplia  sends  them  on  to  the  king  and  he  will  face  death 
to  establish  their  truth.  Let  the  king  send  orders  to  his  ser¬ 
vants  to  cut  off  the  road  between  Babylon  and  Borsippa.2 

About  this  time,  Pir  Amurru,  or,  rather,  Pirawurr,  as  he 
writes  himself,  sent  a  long  letter  to  his  brother  Bel-etir.  Its 
extraordinary  interest  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  written  in 
cuneiform  and  on  a  tablet  but  in  Aramaic  on  a  fragment  of 
a  potsherd.  Sometimes  our  old  friends  appear  strangely  in 
Aramaic  dress.  His  brother  is  in  the  land  of  Akkad  while  he 
is  with  Arbaia,  he  went  out  from  Uruk  with  Ger  Saphon  and 
Ugammir.  Four  friends  are  in  Beth  Awukkan  (Bit  Amuk- 
kanu),  a  messenger  of  the  king  of  Babel  has  come  with  a  letter 
from  him  in  his  hand.  Pirawurr  has  been  detained  in  Hafiru 
in  the  desert.  He  went  to  the  Madai,  the  Medes,  and  again 
he  was  detained.  Then  he  came  before  the  king  as  one  among 
the  dogs,  but  the  king  gave  him  oil  and  bade  him  grind  for 
him  that  he  might  have  olive-oil.  Then  he  wrote  and  estab¬ 
lished  the  fact  that  the  enemy  was  in  Beth  Awukkan.  The 
lH.  324  f.;  764.  2  H.  326. 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 


463 


king  asked  his  father  about  various  well-known  officials  and 
his  father  replied  that  Upaq-ana-Arbail,  astrologer  at  Uruk, 
would  come  to  Ashur.  He  asked  if  they  tore  the  women.  Pira- 
wurr  declares  they  are  his  servants,  yet  have  they  made  de¬ 
struction,  although  they  were  from  Beth  Awukkan.  His 
brother  sent  Naid  Marduk,  who  aided  them.  Zaban-iddina 
and  Nabu-ushallim  of  Beth  Eden  (Bit  Adini)  did  something, 
and  this  recalls  to  his  mind  that  Tiglath  Pileser  carried  off 
prisoners  from  Beth  Awukkan,  Ululai  from  Beth  Eden,  Sar- 
gon  from  Dur  Sin,  and  Sanherib  from  Kish.  In  each  case, 
we  have  the  name  of  the  king,  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  Sargon, 
Sennacherib,  exactly  as  it  is  found  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.1 

Bel-ibni  reports  that  the  king’s  sceptre  is  now  established 
upon  the  Bitter  Waters,  the  Persian  Gulf,  yet  not  so  firmly 
but  that  he  suggests  the  coming  of  a  score  of  Sidonians  to  build 
ships  to  sail  upon  it.  Furthermore,  he  has  important  news 
from  Elam.  The  nagir  official  has  begun  a  revolt  and  has 
killed  the  king’s  brother,  but  the  Elamite  ruler  is  about  to 
attack  him.  Nabu-bel-shumate,  smitten  of  Bel  and  cursed 
by  the  gods,  has  carried  off  all  his  goods  to  Elam  and  through 
breakdown  of  heart  has  entered  the  city  of  Pakkimiri.  This 
is  a  contemporary  account  of  the  beginning  of  the  revolt 
against  Tammaritu.  Early  in  649,  there  was  a  battle  in  which 
the  king  was  not  present,  and  Intapigash  supplanted  him.2 

The  deposed  monarch  fled  by  the  way  of  the  sea  and  the 
sculptures  show  the  ship  on  which  he  escaped,  his  brothers 
and  his  seventeen  relatives,  the  eighty-five  princes  who  filled 
it,  how  it  was  caught  in  the  mud  and  Tammaritu  was  borne 
on  the  back  of  a  retainer  over  the  rough  ground  and  through 
the  reeds  until  he  came  to  Marduk-shar-usur.  At  this  point, 
the  fugitives  fell  into  the  hands  of  Bel-ibni,  who  at  once  hurried 
the  news  to  Ashur-bani-apal.  A  kindly  letter  informed  the 
fallen  monarch  that  Bel-ibni  had  written  about  him  and  very 
humbly  Tammaritu  replies  to  “the  king  my  lord,”  from  whom 
he  had  heard  good  words;  by  the  heart  of  the  god  and  the  pro¬ 
tecting  genius  of  the  king  he  lives.  Ashur-bani-apal  was  care- 
1  Lidzbarski,  ZA.,  XXXI,  193  ff.  2  H.  795;  521. 


464 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


ful  to  address  him  still  as  king.  On  the  16th  of  September, 
he  draws  attention  to  the  Rashu  tribe  who  are  in  Tammaritu’s 
rear,  and  speaks  of  the  treading  down  of  the  land  by  the  new 
king  who  is  now  directing  the  warfare  against  Assyria.  But 
Tammaritu  need  not  fear,  for  many  good  deeds  will  be  done 
him.  Complaint  is  made  against  Nabu-bel-shumate.  Ashur- 
bani-apal  has  settled  thirty  or  forty  sons  of  the  former  king 
and  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  fifty  other  souls,  they  enter 
before  him.  Soon  there  will  be  a  feast  for  his  people.  It  is 
Tammaritu’s  watch  they  keep.  Ashur-bani-apal  will  do  for 
Tammaritu  things  no  father  would  do  for  a  son.1 

Shuma,  sister’s  son  of  the  deposed  monarch,  has  fled  from 
Elam  to  the  Dahha  tribe,  and  has  been  taken  under  Bel-ibni’s 
protection.  He  is  sick  at  present,  later  he  will  be  forwarded 
to  the  king.  A  messenger  has  informed  him  that  Natan  and 
the  Puqudu  folk  who  live  in  Tilqa  went  to  Nabu-bel-shumate 
to  the  city  of  Targibatu  and  each  of  them  has  called  upon  the 
name  of  the  god  as  follows:  “ According  to  the  agreement  we 
will  send  you  all  the  news  we  hear.”  They  have  sold  him  three 
thousand  cattle  for  silver  and  they  spoke  to  him  thus:  “May 
our  sheep  come  and  pasture  in  the  field  of  the  Ubanat  tribe? 
You  may  trust  us  in  it.”  Bel-ibni  prays  that  a  messenger 
may  come  from  the  king  to  open  wide  the  eyes  of  Natan,  and 
to  give  him  this  order:  “If  you  send  into  Elam  anything  for 
sale,  if  a  single  sheep  crosses  the  border  into  the  pastureland 
of  Elam,  I  will  no  longer  permit  you  to  live.”  2 

He  is  taken  severely  to  task  by  his  royal  master:  “You 
have  opposed  Kisir  Ashur  and  you  have  written  about  the 
Puqudu  on  the  Harm  River;  a  man  who  loved  his  master’s 
house  would  have  immediately  written  his  lord  what  he  saw 
and  heard.”3  Following  this  came  a  letter  sharper  in  tone. 
“As  to  that  boundary  of  the  Gurasimmu  of  which  you  have 
asked  me,  I  did  not  give  you  authority  to  do  according  to  your 
own  wish;  what  I  told  you,  that  do  and  give.  What  is  now  thy 
command?  Why  have  you  not  done  according  to  my  order? 
You,  who  are  my  Companion,  and  know  my  fear !  One  who 
1  H.  284;  1040;  1022.  2  H.  282.  2  402. 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 


465 


knew  it  not,  how  would  he  do?  Behold,  if  you  wish  a  word 
of  grace,  collect  thy  bowmen  as  thou  wilt.  How  shall  I  desire 
the  return  of  my  good-will  towards  thee?  What  Sin-dini- 
epush  does  have  I  seen;  whatever  is  good  for  him,  that  do, 
and  in  the  proper  time  thou  shalt  see  thy  reward/’  1 

Nor  did  the  king  confine  the  blame  of  Bel-ibni  to  the  private 
ear  of  that  unfortunate  official.  When  the  citizens  of  Nippur 
sent  a  delegation  of  fifteen  elders  to  bring  peace-greetings  to 
their  king,  but  a  part  of  them  were  admitted  into  the  royal 
presence.  Ashur-bani-apal  tartly  answers  their  complaints: 
“It  is  the  sin  of  your  governor,  for  he  is  your  governor;  in  the 
second  place,  it  is  the  sin  of  the  master  of  ceremonies  who  did 
not  bring  you  in.  I  swear  by  Ashur  my  god  that  I  did  not 
know  that  half  of  you  came  into  my  presence  and  the  other 
half  did  not.  As  for  this  one,”  that  is,  Bel-ibni,  “I  know  who 
he  is,  but  the  devotedness  of  you  all  is  as  one  to  me.”  As  to 
Hanana,  Rimutu,  and  Aiau,  the  men  of  the  Rua,  let  them 
not  be  negligent  in  guarding  them.2 

While  Ashur-bani-apal  freely  defended  Kisir  Ashur  to  Bel- 
ibni,  since  he  was  the  governor  of  the  Babylonian  Dur  Shar- 
rukin  and  commander  of  the  crown  prince’s  body-guard,  he 
spoke  sternly  enough  to  Kisir  Ashur  himself:  “The  houses 
of  the  musharkis  officials  are  complete,  you  have  rebelled 
against  me,  quickly  give  them  to  your  servants.”  Kisir  Ashur 
could  only  protest  that  his  opponents  had  not  spoken  the  truth; 
let  a  direct  representative  of  the  king  be  sent  who  should  tell 
the  king  the  truth.  Let  him  see  whether  those  houses  are 
built  and  if  they  are,  then  let  the  king  punish  him  for  his  sin 
and  say:  “ Why  do  you  not  speak  truth  with  me ? ”  The  king 
has  likewise  demanded  why  he  has  taken  the  houses  of  Shepe 
Ashur  and  given  them  to  his  own  men.  When  Shepe  Ashur 
went  to  Simiri,  his  servants  went  with  him,  and  so  Kisir  Ashur 
took  their  houses  and  gave  them  to  the  men  of  Marhasai.  Let 
Shepe  Ashur  have  the  governor  build  houses  there  with  his 
own  servants.3 

With  Tammaritu  brushing  the  ground  with  his  beard  and 

I  tf.  291.  2//.  287.  3  H.  190. 


466 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


following  the  royal  chariot  as  a  vassal,  Ashur-bani-apal  could 
adopt  a  firm  attitude  towards  his  successor  Intapigash.  He 
first  wrote  him  a  friendly  letter  (649).  This  produced  no  re¬ 
sult  and  a  sharper  message  was  sent:  “ Since  thou  wilt  not 
surrender  the  Assyrians  carried  off  by  Nabu-bel-shumate,  I 
will  march  against  thee;  thy  cities  I  will  destroy,  the  citizens 
of  Susa,  Mataktu,  and  Hidalu  I  will  carry  off  as  spoil,  from 
thy  royal  throne  I  will  cast  thee  down,  another  on  thy  throne 
I  will  cause  to  sit,  the  fate  of  Tep  Humban  I  will  bring  upon 
thee.”1 

This  was  answered  by  another  invasion  of  the  alluvium. 
Marduk-shar-usur,  the  Assyrian  commander-in-chief,  was 
seized  and  a  great  slaughter  made  in  the  land.  Sin-iddina  and 
Shuma,  the  son  of  Nabu-ahe-iddina,  raised  the  land  against 
Assyrian  rule  and  carried  off  a  part  of  their  colleagues  who 
were  with  Bel-ibni,  and  presented  them  to  Nabu-bel-shumate.2 
Again  the  king  was  implored  to  send  aid,  five  hundred  horses 
for  Nippur  and  a  hundred  for  Uruk;  let  the  king  send  the  prince 
Natan.3 

One  official  account  states  that  Intapigash  did  set  the  As¬ 
syrians  free,  and  that  he  made  alliance  with  Ashur-bani-apal; 
an  alternate  says  that  when  the  Assyrian  ambassador  reached 
Der,  the  Elamites  heard  of  it  and  revolted.  The  story  is  more 
truly  told  in  the  despatches  of  Bel-ibni. 

Humbanshibar,  the  Elamite  nagir,  and  his  nobles  have  col¬ 
lected  in  Taidi,  they  have  prepared  revolt  and  have  provided 
for  their  plunder.  When  the  Assyrians  reach  Der,  then  will 
that  smitten  of  Bel,  accursed  of  the  gods,  Nabu-bel-shumate, 
and  the  sinners  who  are  with  him,  be  captured  and  the 
prisoners  released.  Already  Bel-ibni  has  won  a  victory  which 
has  had  pleasant  personal  results.  His  brother  Bel-shunu, 
four  years  a  captive  of  that  smitten  of  the  gods,  Nabu-bel- 
shumate,  who  had  carried  him  off  and  had  made  him  see 
the  darkness  of  all  lands,  has  been  freed  from  his  bonds. 
Shortly  he  will  be  sent  to  court.4  Here  he  was  well  received 


lH.  1151;  cf.  1125;  1167;  1323. 
3  H.  622. 


2R.  963. 
4  H.  460. 


BEL-IBNI,  THE  VICEROY 


467 


and  as  reward  for  his  sufferings  was  made  governor  of  Hindanu 
and  gave  his  name  to  the  year  648. 

Bel-ibni’ s  troops  surrounded  a  hostile  Elamite  city,  cattle 
and  spoil  they  carried  off,  they  retreated  again  to  Der,  which 
they  entered  on  the  14th  of  December  (649) .  The  riding  horses 
he  sent  to  Maliku,  whose  troops  have  come  to  Bel-ibni  and 
have  been  ordered  to  Der.  They  report  that  when  Zer-iddina 
arrived,  the  nagir  assembled  the  people  of  the  Elamite  land, 
he  made  them  enter  the  temple  and  there  they  keep  watch. 
The  king  will  ask:  “ Where  is  the  king  of  Elam?”  He  is  in 
Bit  Imbi.1 

1  H.  1063. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 


THE  DECISION  OF  THE  GODS;  THE  DEATH  OF 

SHAMASH-SHUM-UKIN 

While  south  Babylonia  was  being  lost  and  won  again  for 
Ashur-bani-apal,  the  north  was  completely  abandoned  to 
Shamash-shum-ukin.  The  only  Assyrian  campaign  was  that 
to  win  the  ear  of  the  gods;  in  this  Ashur-bani-apal  excelled. 
On  the  8th  of  August,  651,  the  seers  are  inquiring  whether 
the  Elamites  will  collect  and  make  battle.  On  the  15th  of 
October,  we  find  him  asking  about  his  “  faithless  brother/’  as 
Shamash-shum-ukin  is  henceforth  to  be  officially  designated. 
It  has  been  reported  that  he  has  fled  to  Elam;  is  this  true? 
The  reply  is  in  the  negative.  To  his  request  the  seers  add 
their  own  prayer,  that  the  great  gods,  the  lords  of  decision, 
send  daily  grace  to  their  lord.  The  16th  of  the  next  month, 
the  great  battle  with  Shamash-shum-ukin  was  about  to  begin 
and  the  distracted  king  begged  the  heavenly  powers  to  in¬ 
form  him  whether  his  troops  would  be  fortunate  in  the  en¬ 
counter.  This  time  the  reply  was  favourable.  He  is  asking 
on  the  11th  of  February,  650:  “Will  Shamash-shum-ukin  leave 
Babylon,  will  he  flee  to  Elam?”  About  the  same  time  is  the 
query:  “  Shall  they  cross  the  four  rivers,  will  they  camp  in 
Bab  Same,  will  they  engage  with  the  troops  of  Shamash-shum- 
ukin  in  battle,  what  will  be  the  outcome?”  1 

This  is  the  forecast  of  the  skirmish  which  took  place  at  the 
camp  of  Bab  Same.  In  another  document  we  have  the  list 
of  the  persons  taken  prisoners  after  the  conflict,  including  the 
woman  of  Iddua,  the  chief  builder  of  Bab  Same,  and  a  son  of 
Aplia,  the  governor  of  Arrapha.  Babylonia  was  beginning  to 
be  won  back  for  Assyria.2 

Through  Bel  and  Nabu,  who  have  given  power  to  the  king 
of  lands,  his  lord,  Marduk  begs  that  his  servants  may  speak 

1  Klauber,  Texte,  128;  109;  107;  113;  118. 

468 


2  J.  891. 


THE  DECISION  OF  THE  GODS 


469 


their  thoughts  to  Ashur-bani-apal.  The  assigned  work  is  not 
done,  it  will  be  complete  in  two  months.  People  say  that  Sip- 
par  is  a  door  before  them,  it  will  turn  the  people  to  the  hands 
of  the  king.  The  officers  suggest  that  a  camp  be  established 
in  Dilbat,  then  men  will  pass  over  and  a  caravan  may  not  go 
around  them,  their  troops  will  go  forth  and  plunder  the  cara¬ 
van.  Let  them  make  a  wall  as  of  a  camp  of  Babylon,  let  them 
provide  wooden  shelters  and  drinking- vessels.  Let  there  be 
five  hundred  and  twenty  horses  of  the  king  of  lands  in  Kutu, 
let  them  be  in  quietness,  let  men  who  wish  for  their  life  flee 
from  Babylon.1 

Sippar  fell  into  Assyrian  hands.  Ashur-bani-apal  was  en¬ 
couraged  to  ask  whether  on  the  day  when  the  troops  move 
into  Sippar  and  Shamash-shum-ukin  hears  it,  he  will  go  out 
of  Babylon  and  flee  in  the  direction  his  eyes  turn.  The  answer 
was  a  negative.  Then  he  asks  whether  the  man  whose  name 
is  on  the  tablet  should  be  appointed  over  the  Amukkanu,  and 
whether,  if  he  is  so  placed,  he  will  come  to  an  understanding 
with  Shamash-shum-ukin  or  with  Nabu-bel-shumate  or  with 
any  other  monarch.  In  the  past,  Ashur-bani-apal  had  done 
much  for  Zakir.  He  could  not  believe  that  all  these  past  bene¬ 
fits  had  been  forgotten  and  in  October  of  650  he  sent  a  letter 
to  Zakir  and  Kabtia,  protesting  against  the  reports  from  Kutu 
that  the  son  of  Zakir  would  be  no  longer  one  of  the  king’s  ser¬ 
vants.  Let  them  not  fear  and  desert  the  cause  of  the  king.2 

The  royal  troops  stationed  at  Birat  have  been  sent,  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  the  royal  order,  into  the  swamps  of  Birat  by 
Nabu-shum-lishir.  There  they  were  attacked  by  the  troops 
of  the  Babylonian  king.  He  claims  the  victory  with  a  loss 
to  the  enemy  of  four  killed  and  nine  captives,  who  are  sent  as 
proof  to  the  king.  Birat  is  a  ruin,  its  gods  have  been  carried 
off.  If  he  might  only  see  the  king’s  signet-ring,  he  would  be 
restored  to  life;  when  he  sent  his  messenger,  he  had  not  seen 
the  royal  seal,  he  lives  not,  he  is  dead;  let  not  the  king  aban¬ 
don  him.3 

With  Aqar-bel-lumur,  he  states  that  he  has  news  of  the 

1  H.  804.  2  Klauber,  Texte,  139;  H.  944.  3  H.  259. 


470 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


son  of  Iadu,  in  whom  with  a  little  good-will  we  might  find  a 
Judaean.  He  is  in  Babylon;  the  month  April  he  observes  be¬ 
cause  the  month  April  brought  him  forward.  Seven  hundred 
soldiers  have  they  supplied  to  the  king,  now  he  is  going  against 
the  city  of  Patnu.  Aqar-bel-lumur  himself  describes  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  the  son  of  Dakkuru  sinned  against  his  family, 
killing  his  mother  and  brothers  with  hunger,  but  the  king  has 
returned  no  answer  to  his  complaints.  He  is  in  fear.  The 
king  knows  he  cannot  retain  his  house  or  his  servants,  his 
property  in  Babylon  has  been  seized  by  the  son  of  Dakkuru. 
Lugal  Maradda,  the  god  of  Marad,  is  the  brother  of  Nabu, 
also  the  brother  of  Nergal  is  he.  The  king’s  father  saved 
Marad,  when  he  wrote,  “In  Ezida  before  Nabu  have  I  placed 
the  governor  of  Marad,”  he  brought  tribute  voluntarily  to  the 
king’s  father,  but  now  the  son  of  Dakkuru  has  brought  Marad 
to  himself.1 

More  than  all  lands  has  the  king  spoken  kindness  with  Bada, 
in  the  protection  of  the  king  he  has  planned  kindness  and 
executed  it.  Let  him  bind  the  bonds  of  the  loins  of  Aqar-bel- 
lumur,  let  him  bring  his  servants  and  come,  let  the  king  fear. 
No  one  will  bring  a  word  of  the  king,  when  there  is  one,  quicker 
than  Aqar-bel-lumur.  He  considers  everything  pertaining  to 
the  king  as  a  sacred  offering  and  to  the  king  he  presents  it. 
When  there  has  been  terror,  as  many  as  seven  times  has  Bada 
sent  to  the  king.  The  men,  as  many  as  were  their  fathers,  are 
dead,  their  houses  the  king  has  assigned  to  their  sons.  Be¬ 
hold  these  servants  are  the  offspring  of  mercy,  who,  if  the  heart 
of  the  king  does  not  forsake  his  servants,  will  not  destroy  the 
house  of  the  king’s  servant.2 

Ashur-bani-apal  began  to  be  encouraged  and  encouraged 
his  Babylonian  supporters:  “Do  not  fear,  keep  the  watch  of 
the  temples;  Shamash-shum-ukin  and  all  his  men  are  shut  up  in 
the  city,  my  army  has  surrounded  them.  Now,  whenever  you 
see  any  of  his  messengers,  kill  him  or  take  him  prisoner.” 3 

While  all  these  operations,  each  intended  to  weaken  the 
allies  of  the  rebel  brother,  were  being  carried  on,  that  unfor- 

1  H.  261;  852  f.  2  H .  892.  3  H .  1186> 


THE  DECISION  OF  THE  GODS 


471 


tunate  remained  shut  up  in  Babylon.  The  business  records 
in  particular  reveal  the  misery  caused  by  the  Assyrian 
blockade.  Already  in  November  of  the  eighteenth  year  of 
Shamash-shum-ukin,  we  hear  that  “in  those  days  want  and 
misery  were  laid  upon  the  land  and  a  mother  would  not  open 
the  door  to  a  daughter.”  A  year  later,  we  have  a  loan  of  money 
to  be  paid  without  interest  on  the  day  when  the  face  of  the 
country  is  opened,  and  we  learn  that  men  are  dying  for  lack 
of  food.  In  May  of  the  twentieth,  another  document  says:  “ In 
those  days,  the  enemy  was  encamped  against  the  city,  want 
was  laid  upon  the  land,  the  price  of  three  qa  of  grain  was  named 
as  one  shekel  of  silver  when  it  could  be  secured  in  secret.” 
When  we  realise  that  this  was  more  than  sixty  times  the  normal 
price,  we  understand  how  severe  was  the  famine  in  the  be¬ 
leaguered  city. 

Rarely  indeed  are  we  able  to  behold  the  innermost  feelings 
of  the  men  of  the  empire.  A  happy  chance,  almost  without 
parallel  in  antiquity,  has  permitted  us  to  read  the  changing 
thoughts  of  the  two  protagonists  as  they  besought  from  the 
depths  of  their  hearts  the  deities  they  believed  they  had  of¬ 
fended. 

Ashur-bani-apal  directs  his  appeal  to  Nabu:  “I  declare 
thy  exalted  state  in  the  assembly  of  the  great  gods;  among 
the  assembly  of  those  who  sin  against  me,  may  my  life  not  be 
spent.  In  the  house  of  the  queen  of  Nineveh,  I  pray  to  thee, 
hero  among  the  gods  his  brethren;  thou  art  the  help  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal,  forever  and  ever.  Thy  servant  am  I,  I  cast  my¬ 
self  at  the  feet  of  Nabu;  leave  me  not,  O  Nabu,  in  the  assem¬ 
bly  of  mine  enemies.” 

Nabu  was  the  god  of  wisdom,  he  was  also  the  god  of  Bor- 
sippa  which  had  been  eclipsed  by  the  fame  of  Babylon  as  Nabu 
had  been  eclipsed  by  Marduk;  he  was  pleased  to  be  gracious 
to  the  enemy  of  those  who  had  surpassed  him  and  his  city: 
“With  thee,  O  Ashur-bani-apal,  am  I  Nabu  to  the  end  of  time; 
thy  feet  shall  not  be  lame,  thy  hands  shall  not  be  weak.  Let 
these  thy  lips  not  tire  to  beseech  me;  thy  tongue  shall  not  be 
shut  within  thy  lips  since  I  give  thee  good  words.  Lift  up 


472 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


thy  head,  let  thy  body  enter  the  temple  Emashmash;  thy 
mouth  is  a  speaker  of  good,  since  it  prays  to  the  goddess  Ur- 
kittu.  With  thy  body  which  I  have  created,  pray  to  me  in 
thy  going  out  to  Emashmash;  with  thy  fate,  which  I  have 
determined,  pray  me:  ‘ Grant  long  life  to  Ashur-bani-apal.’  ” 
Lowly  kneeling,  Ashur-bani-apal  besought  Nabu  his  lord: 
“To  thee,  0  Nabu,  I  give  myself,  leave  me  not;  my  life  is  writ¬ 
ten  down  before  thee,  my  soul  is  sheltered  in  the  bosom  of 
Ninlil.  To  thee,  0  hero  Nabu,  I  give  myself;  leave  me  not 
among  them  that  sin  against  me.” 

There  answered  a  priest  who  gave  omens  from  the  dead, 
standing  before  his  lord  Nabu:  “Fear  thou  not,  0  Ashur- 
bani-apal,  long  life  will  I  grant  thee.  To  favouring  winds  will 
I  intrust  thy  soul,  my  mouth  speaking  good  things  will  bless 
thee  in  the  assembly  of  the  great  gods.” 

Ashur-bani-apal  opened  his  hands,  he  prayed  to  Nabu  his 
lord:  “He  who  taketh  his  stand  with  the  Queen  of  Nineveh 
is  not  contemned  in  the  assembly  of  the  great  gods;  he  who  is 
bound  to  the  girdle  of  Urkittu  is  not  contemned  in  the  as¬ 
sembly  of  those  that  hate  him.  In  the  assembly  of  mine 
enemies,  leave  me  not,  0  Nabu;  in  the  assembly  of  those  that 
oppose  me,  leave  not  my  soul.” 

“  Little  wast  thou,  0  Ashur-bani-apal,  when  I  committed 
thee  to  the  Queen  of  Nineveh;  weak  wast  thou,  O  Ashur-bani- 
apal,  when  thou  sattest  on  her  knee.  Four  nipples  were  placed 
in  thy  mouth;  two  thou  didst  suck  and  with  two  didst  thou 
cover  thy  face.  Thy  enemies,  O  Ashur-bani-apal,  shall  be  like 
grain  scattered  by  the  waters,  like  cress  with  which  the  spring 
is  filled,  shall  they  be  struck  down  by  lightning  before  thy 
feet,  whilst  thou,  0  Ashur-bani-apal,  standest  opposite  the 
great  gods  and  dost  praise  Nabu.”  1 
Shamash-shum-ukin  made  his  confessions  to  Shamash,  the 
oracle  god  from  whom  he  had  received  his  name.  For  his 
prayers,  he  selected  various  extracts  from  the  standard  litera¬ 
ture  of  the  time,  but  he  did  not  hesitate  to  make  any  changes 
necessary  to  fit  his  own  case.  When  first  the  revolt  breaks 
1  Craig,  Texts ,  I,  pl.Vf.;  Streck,  Assurbanipal,  342  ff. 


THE  DECISION  OF  THE  GODS 


473 


out,  we  find  him  confidently  approaching  the  deity:  “Mighty 
lord,  mountain  of  the  Igigi,  prince  of  the  Anunnaki,  deciding 
chieftain;  my  lord,  I  trust  thee,  I  look  to  thee,  my  ears  are 
inclined  to  thee.  My  posterity,  as  many  as  I  have,  do  thou 
order;  the  building  of  my  name  do  thou  command.  Loosen 
the  sin,  loosen  the  distress;  do  thou  lay  upon  me  thy  great 
power  of  life.  May  they  write  me  down  as  king,  0  excellent 
lord,  prince;  that  which  they  talk  may  they  bring  to  comple¬ 
tion.  Among  the  people  he  has  proclaimed  my  command; 
may  thy  servant  live  and  be  at  peace.” 

Then  things  do  not  go  as  successfully  as  he  might  wish  and 
we  detect  the  note  of  doubt:  “A  mighty  one  as  a  partner  thou 
grantest  me;  to  him  who  is  not  worthy  thou  dost  give  a  son. 
The  door  and  the  bolt  of  heaven  thou  openest;  for  him  who 
seest  not,  thou  makest  light.  The  unopened  documents  of 
my  glory  thou  dost  proclaim;  among  the  lambs  thou  makest 
plenteous  the  meat.  Do  thou  grant  mercy;  may  I  drink  wis¬ 
dom;  in  dreams  where  am  I?  0  turn  the  black  dream  to 
favourable  meaning.  Righteously  may  I  walk,  my  partner 
may  I  overcome;  in  thy  days  may  I  prolong  thy  favour.” 
“Shamash,  turn  back  the  hostile  one,  bound  in  evil  case  on 
my  left  hand;  the  god  Siris,  pardoner  of  gods  and  men,  on  my 
right  hand  have  I  exalted.  Verily,  I  shall  consult  the  dog; 
verily  I  shall  consult  the  swine;  verily  I  shall  consult  the  bird; 
verily  I  shall  consult  the  fish.  Unto  the  City  (Babylon)  he 
has  given  it;  upon  the  earth  he  has  approached,  into  the  brick 
verily  he  has  entered.” 

He  becomes  ill  and  the  incantation  for  the  hand-raising 
prayer  to  Sin  is  performed.  A  cypress  censer  is  placed  before 
Sin,  and  twelve  cakes  of  thyme  and  of  sesame  are  prepared. 
Must,  honey,  and  butter  are  also  made  ready.  An  image  of 
Zaqar,  the  dream-god,  is  placed  at  the  head  of  his  bed,  that 
the  message  of  the  moon-god  may  be  brought.  The  wrapping 
of  hands  and  feet  are  removed  and  the  appropriate  incanta¬ 
tion  is  recited.  A  clod  of  earth  from  the  outer  gate  is  bound 
in  his  cloak. 

“0  Sin,  brightly  shining  Nannar,  god  both  pure  and  radiant, 


474 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


new-born  Sin,  lighting  the  darkness,  fixing  the  brightness  for 
far-distant  peoples,  granting  good  fortune  at  thy  hand  for  the 
black-headed  people,  brilliant  thy  rising  in  far-distant  heaven, 
bright  is  thy  light  like  the  Fire  in  his  blazing,  filled  with  thy 
brilliance  is  the  earth  far  extending,  glad  are  the  nations,  they 
revive  when  they  see  thee,  god  of  the  bright  light,  in  might  with¬ 
out  equal,  whose  purpose  is  learned  by  none  among  mortals.” 

At  this  point  comes  an  insertion:  “I  am  thy  servant 
Shamash-shum-ukin,  I  have  presented  thee  a  pure  evening  ob¬ 
lation,  I  have  poured  out  before  thee  the  best  beer  and  honey. 
I  bow  down,  I  take  my  stand,  I  seek  thee;  favouring  thoughts 
and  righteousness  establish  for  me.  My  god  and  goddess, 
since  many  days  angry  against  me,  with  justice  and  righteous¬ 
ness  grace  me,  may  my  path  be  favouring,  my  way  be  upright. 
He  will  send  Zaqar,  god  of  dreams,  in  the  night  may  I  hear 
absolution  for  my  sin;  my  sin  do  thou  pardon  and  forever 
will  I  sing  thy  praise.” 

Ashur-bani-apal  and  his  armies  are  approaching  and  the 
last  prayer  of  the  series  marks  the  black  despair  of  the  days 
when  Shamash-shum-ukin  was  shut  up  in  his  capital,  await¬ 
ing  his  fate:  “Ea,  Shamash,  and  Marduk,  what  is  my  trans¬ 
gression  ?  Affliction  hath  overtaken  me,  evil  looks  down  upon 
me.  In  my  citadel  am  I  beleaguered,  they  plan  against  me  as 
a  soul  in  burning;  verily  already  a  soul  in  burning  am  I.  From 
the  midst  of  the  darkness  have  I  seen  thee  going  forth,  0  thou 
great  bull;  on  my  right  hand  lie  overthrown  my  house  beams, 
the  mighty  flood  over  my  head  has  passed.  Like  a  bird  are 
my  pinions  clipped,  broken  is  he  who  is  no  longer  mighty;  to 
supplication  are  turned  my  hands,  my  weakness  is  more  than 
my  loftiness.  Like  a  dove  moan  I  day  and  night,  I  wail  and 
weep  bitterly;  tears  are  forced  from  my  eyes.  Shamash,  in 
thy  lofty  eye  is  appeasement;  loosen  and  remove  the  sin  of 
my  father  and  my  mother,  take  away  the  curse  of  wrath.  Ea, 
king  of  the  abyss,  Marduk,  lord  of  those  who  dwell  on  earth, 
who  changest  the  way,  may  my  sin  be  made  good  by  him, 
my  look  may  he  receive,  favour  may  his  innermost  heart  seek 
for  me.  Ea,  Shamash,  and  Marduk  help  me,  to  you  I  look; 


THE  DECISION  OF  THE  GODS 


475 


may  I  be  pure  and  clean,  0  Nusku.  My  god  whom  I  know 
not,  consider  how  I  exalt  thy  mighty  name  loudly,  yet  hast 
thou  ravaged  my  people.  Thy  words  have  I  disregarded,  fully 
I  admit  it;  my  god,  whiten,  loosen,  free  my  heart  from  the 
words  of  my  blasphemies,  accept  my  supplications,  grant  my 
gifts  to  thee,  turn  it  into  a  favourable  omen.”  1 

The  despairing  cry  to  the  gods  was  of  no  avail  and  by  the 
middle  of  July,  648,  the  inhabitants  were  eating  the  flesh  of 
their  sons  and  daughters  and  gnawing  their  leather  trappings. 
Shamash-shum-ukin  could  expect  no  mercy;  in  despair  he 
cast  himself  into  the  fire  and  perished.  The  funeral  arrange¬ 
ments  were  confided  to  the  astrologer  Mar  Ishtar.  With  the 
aid  of  Dumuqu,  the  son  of  the  shatam  official,  the  grave  vault 
was  constructed,  Shamash-shum-ukin  and  his  palace  lady 
were  laid  to  rest  in  peace,  their  grave  chamber  was  prepared, 
the  grave  they  bewailed,  they  made  a  burning,  all  their  salves 
they  salved,  many  freeing  incantations  were  recited,  a  house 
of  washing  and  a  house  of  offerings  were  completed,  the  ap¬ 
peasing  incantations  contained  in  the  tablets  were  gone 
through.  May  the  king’s  heart  rejoice,  the  men  of  Akkad 
fear,  but  their  hearts  have  been  established  and  the  right  way 
they  have  taken.2 

The  fate  of  the  citizens  was  terrible  enough,  and  even  those 
who  had  attempted  to  abandon  the  Babylonian  prince  in  his 
last  days  were  not  received.  They  were  carried  off  to  Ashur 
to  meet  Ashur-bani-apal,  and  by  the  same  sculptured  bulls 
which  had  witnessed  the  assassination  of  Sennacherib,  their 
tongues  which  had  blasphemed  the  gods  were  cut  out  and  they 
were  deprived  of  life.  The  streets  and  public  squares  were 
choked  by  the  bodies  of  those  who  had  died  of  hunger  and 
pestilence  during  the  siege,  and  to  them  were  added  the  slain 
in  the  sack  of  the  city.  There  was  great  feasting  for  the 
wolves,  vultures,  and  fish,  for  the  dogs  and  swine  which 
roamed  the  streets. 

1  Myhrman,  Babylonian  Hymns  and  Prayers ,  22  fT. ;  Prince,  AJSL.,  XXXI, 
256  ff.;  Langdon,  PSBA.,  XL,  104  fT. 

2  H .  437. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 


LAYING  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHALDEAN  EMPIRE 

Babylon  lay  prostrate,  her  king  was  dead,  her  citizens  slain 
or  scattered  in  flight.  Yet  even  in  her  degradation,  the  spell 
of  Marduk  was  potent.  Shortly  Ashur-bani-apal  issued  his 
proclamation  to  the  Babylonians  and  began  by  calling  them 
“men  under  my  protection,’’  that  is,  they  were  still  to  be  recog¬ 
nised  as  citizens  of  an  imperial  free  city.  “It  is  well  with  me, 
my  palace,  and  my  sons,  may  it  be  well  with  you  and  your 
sons.  From  this  day  may  your  heart  be  of  good  cheer  and  at 
the  appointed  time  of  Marduk  I  shall  see  the  lofty  power  of 
the  god,  the  decision  of  his  great  divinity,  first  may  I  see. 
Neither  father  nor  mother  made  me  great,  they  granted  me 
truth  and  righteousness,  a  good  destiny  they  fixed  for  me. 
In  my  reign,  there  was  abundance  in  season,  good  things  in 
my  palace  I  established.”  1 

Ashur-bani-apal  likewise  gave  orders  that  the  citizens  be 
assembled,  and  permitted  the  noble  families  of  Babylon  and 
Borsippa  to  seek  the  king’s  peace,  that  is,  give  in  their  formal 
submission.  They  declared  “it  is  the  feast  of  Babylon”  when 
they  heard  that  the  Assyrian  king  had  ordered  sacrifices.  The 
men  appointed  by  the  king  drew  near  and  entered,  they  offered 
once  more  the  sacrifices  before  Bel.  Zer-ibni,  son  of  Eteru, 
who  was  well  known  to  the  king,  entered  the  temple  as  house¬ 
keeper  that  the  regular  offerings  might  be  established  once 
more.2 

The  re-establishment  of  the  temples  in  Borsippa  was  in¬ 
trusted  to  the  kalu  priest  Pulu.  He  removed  certain  objects 
from  the  festival  houses  of  Nabu  and  Tashmetum,  the  team 
he  cut  off,  and  the  vessels  of  gold  which  Sargon  had  made  for 
the  temples.  The  goldsmith  placed  gold  upon  it,  the  old  work 
he  removed,  he  made  it  new,  and  the  mighty  ruler  of  Nabu 

2H.  971. 


1  H.  926. 


476 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  CHALDEAN  EMPIRE  477 


stands  upon  it.  The  housekeeper  saw  it,  he  caused  him  to 
return,  he  placed  no  one  in  Eshallit.  He  made  him  appoint 
the  chief  officials  of  Emineshu  in  the  midst  of  the  temple  and 
images  of  the  kings  he  had  placed  before  that  of  his  father, 
one  before  Bel  and  one  before  Nabu.  The  wine-offerings  they 
increased,  the  grain  of  the  tribute  has  been  gathered.  In  the 
libation  house  of  Bel  and  Anu  he  enters,  twice  during  the  year 
the  sacrifice  of  its  god  is  to  be  offered.  Six  men,  who  were 
all  hidden  before  him,  he  did  not  show  to  any  one  who  was 
with  him  and  a  woman  who  made  an  appearance  for  Tash- 
metum.  This  is  the  ceremony  he  is  to  perform,  no  one  with 
him  shall  see  it,  neither  a  second-class  priest  nor  any  official, 
not  even  the  chief  officer  of  the  king.  Before  Nabu  he  will 
establish  it,  may  it  endure  forever.  That  which  is  done  in 
the  house  of  Marduk,  whether  it  has  ceased  for  one  month 
or  for  two,  may  it  be  done  forever.1 

Bel-shunu,  back  from  his  captivity  in  Elam,  assures  the 
delegate  that  the  nobility  of  Babylon  are  devoted  friends  of 
the  king.  They  have  requested  that  some  one  be  sent  to  their 
land  and  Nabu-ahe-eriba  has  been  ordered  to  advance  to  the 
bridge.  Another  son  of  Iakin  has  spoken  with  the  Babylonians 
about  the  king’s  entrance  into  the  city;  he  reports:  “ Certainly 
Bel  will  take  action  and  when  the  king  completes  the  ritual 
the  god  will  hearken  to  him.”  Let  the  troops  come  and  the 
king  will  attain  his  desire.2 

The  city  streets  were  at  length  cleansed,  the  corpses  were 
cast  outside  the  walls,  and  with  lamentation  and  prayer  the 
city  was  made  pure  in  the  sight  of  the  gods.  Whether  Ashur- 
bani-apal  actually  did  visit  the  rebel  city  is  unknown  and  the 
question  as  to  whether  he  ruled  there  as  king  has  been  hotly 
debated.  During  the  remaining  twenty-two  years  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal’s  reign,  the  business  documents  are  dated  by  the 
years  of  Kandalanu.  Since  this  dating  is  not  continued  be¬ 
yond  the  death  of  the  Assyrian  king,  there  seems  at  first  sight 
reason  to  assume  that  Ashur-bani-apal  took  this  title  in  Baby¬ 
lonia  as  Tiglath  Pileser  III  had  been  known  as  Pulu  and  Shal- 
1 H.  951;  975.  *  H.  844. 


478 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


maneser  V  as  Ululai,  yet  it  must  be  admitted  there  are  pas¬ 
sages  which  seem  to  imply  that  the  two  were  not  identical. 
At  any  rate,  the  actual  administration  was  intrusted  to 
Shamash-daninanni,  who  appears  as  eponym  in  644,  sometimes 
as  governor  of  Akkad,  sometimes  of  Babylon. 

Beginning  with  Nippur,  the  south  honoured  Ashur-bani-apal 
in  his  own  name.  Here  too  there  were  serious  problems  of 
reconstruction.  Not  all  the  local  chiefs  were  of  proved  loyalty 
and  the  defeat  of  Shamash-shum-ukin  had  left  them  much 
troubled.  For  instance,  we  have  a  rather  pathetic  letter  from 
Ea-zer-iqisha  to  his  mother  Humbushti.  He  has  been  slan¬ 
dered  before  the  king,  for  they  declare  that  he  and  Nabu-shezib 
have  been  friends  of  the  king  of  Babylon.  Ea-zer-iqisha  re¬ 
plied  that  this  accusation  had  been  first  learned  from  the  king 
of  Babylon  himself.  When  the  king  inquired  of  him,  he  an¬ 
swered:  “Urta  destroy  the  lie,  his  mouth  lets  loose  overflow¬ 
ing  wickedness.”  He  has  heard  that  the  Puqudu  have  violently 
taken  away  his  home  and  his  family  from  Nabu-shezib,  whom 
the  king  of  Babylon  appointed,  so  that  he  must  escape  to  the 
Amukkanu.  This  he  has  reported  to  the  king,  reminding  him 
that  he  is  closely  bound  to  the  king;  let  the  king  be  wise  of 
heart,  since  he  is  faithful  to  the  king.  If  it  please  the  king, 
let  him  send  four  men  to  the  Amukkanu;  if  Nabu-shezib  is 
there,  he  is  the  lord  of  his  people,  the  hands  of  his  king,  the 
lock  of  hair  from  his  head;  if  Nabu-shezib  is  not  there,  and 
the  people  who  are  like  the  House  of  Amukkanu  put  it  in  the 
hand  of  the  king,  let  the  king  be  wise  when  he  comes  with  him 
and  the  Amukkanu  declare:  “No  one  has  entered  here  and 
the  servants  of  the  king  are  untouched.”  He  begs  of  his  mother 
that  she  quickly  send  a  message  proving  that  Amukkanu  is 
loyal,  and  asks:  “Am  I  a  fugitive  who  can  escape  from  thy 
hand?”  1 

We  hear  no  more  of  Ea-zer-iqisha,  but  his  son  is  the  topic 
of  a  report  from  Bel-ushallim,  forwarded  through  Nabu-ushab- 
shi,  on  the  19th  of  May,  648.  The  king  replies  that  a  good 
deed  has  been  done  by  him.  Nabu-ushabshi  has  also  sent 

1  H.  896. 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  CHALDEAN  EMPIRE  479 


about  the  matter  of  Humbushti,  urging  that  it  ought  not  be 
settled  until  Bel-ushallim  arrive;  the  king  answers:  “Come, 
see  the  friendly  face  of  the  king,  give  counsel  for  the  path  of 
thy  lord,  may  he  hear  thee.”  1 
No  revolt  need  be  feared  in  north  Babylonia;  the  capital 
lay  prostrate,  the  lesson  had  been  learned.  Quite  different 
was  the  situation  in  the  south  and  east,  where  the  actual  ruler 
was  Bel-ibni,  the  Chaldaean.  His  letters  are  full  of  wars  and 
rumours  of  wars,  the  same  as  before  the  death  of  Shamash- 
shum-ukin.  Through  all  the  difficulties  which  could  be  de¬ 
vised  by  a  royal  master  almost  as  hostile  to  him  as  to  the  Elam¬ 
ites,  Bel-ibni  held  his  steadfast  way;  thus  were  laid  the  sure 
foundations  of  that  empire  which  his  son  Nabopolassar  was 
in  such  seeming  suddenness  to  bring  into  being. 

No  sooner  was  Intapigash  enthroned  in  649  than  ITum- 
banshibar,  the  Elamite  nagir,  was  in  revolt  against  him.  By 
July  of  648,  Humbanshibar  was  in  friendly  communication 
with  Bel-ibni  and  with  Ashur-bani-apal,  and  he  received  a 
kindly  reply  from  the  Assyrian  king.2  Some  time  after,  a  third 
Humbanhaltash  appears  to  have  supplanted  Intapigash,  but 
the  war  continued  unabated.  Various  tribes,  so  Bel-ibni  re¬ 
ports,  such  as  the  Hilmu,  the  Pillatu,  and  the  Iashian,  are  in 
sad  straits;  they  are  making  meal  of  bitter  herbs  and  of  plants 
which  only  the  wild  asses  eat.  They  rub  it  with  their  hands, 
they  mix  it,  they  eat  it,  on  it  they  live.  Nabu-bel-shumate, 
whose  skin  may  Nabu  give  to  be  taken,  has  hired  their  troops 
to  go  against  Bel-ibni  for  ten  gur  of  dates  and  two  slaves.  Two 
hundred  and  fifty  Gurasimmu  who  were  on  his  side  crossed 
over  on  rafts,  plundered  two  of  the  pro- Assyrian  clans,  stripped 
the  dead  before  the  face  of  Bel-ibni,  and  made  good  their 
escape.  Since  the  gods  of  the  king  stood  by  him,  Bel-ibni 
embarked  four  hundred  soldiers  on  ships,  they  crossed  the 
Bitter  River  to  Elam,  under  the  protection  of  the  king  they 
made  a  destruction  among  the  Hilmu  and  the  Pillatu.  When 
they  had  slaughtered  five  or  six  hundred  of  their  cattle,  they 
decamped;  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  carcasses  were  brought 
1 H.  517.  2 //.  1170. 


480 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


back.  But  Nabu-bel-shumate,  cursed  and  cast  off  by  the  gods, 
settled  the  Assyrian  captives  in  Hupapanu.1 

Bel-ibni  has  taken  the  treasures  of  Admanu,  prince  of  the 
Mannu  land,  and  of  the  Assyrians  who  were  with  him  in  the 
Nahal  land,  and  has  forwarded  it  all  to  his  master.  A  hundred 
and  fifty  soldiers  were  despatched  to  the  Akban  and  the  Ale 
lands,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Takkatap  River,  and  there  they 
slew  many  warriors.  They  made  a  hundred  and  thirty  pris¬ 
oners  and  burned  their  villages  with  fire.  Amurru-zer-ibni 
and  his  companions  gathered  a  “bow”  of  three  hundred  men, 
and  when  they  saw  the  advance  of  the  king’s  servants,  they 
planned  an  ambush  on  the  Nahal  River.  The  Assyrians,  how¬ 
ever,  changed  their  line  of  march,  and  seized  a  ford  three  thou¬ 
sand  furlongs  above  them.  When  they  saw  that  their  oppo¬ 
nents  were  many,  they  rose  up,  they  drew  up  in  line  of  battle, 
as  many  as  they  could  they  killed.  To  one  another  they  said: 
“We  are  fourteen  double  hours  distant  from  the  Sealands;  if 
we  must  die,  let  us  die  with  an  illustrious  name.”  The  gods 
of  the  king  stood  by  his  servants,  they  killed  seventeen  of  the 
enemy’s  warriors  and  sixty  or  seventy  they  wounded.  Of  the 
king’s  servants,  twenty  received  wounds.  Bel-ibni  collected 
the  remainder  of  his  bowmen,  six  hundred  in  number,  with 
fifty  horsemen,  and  took  up  his  position  in  Bab  Marrat.  He 
sent  a  party  on  rafts  to  Mahmiti,  they  captured  fifteen  hun¬ 
dred  cattle  belonging  to  the  king  of  Elam  and  the  prince  of 
the  Pillatu.  Five  hundred  they  brought  back  on  rafts,  the 
remainder  are  still  there.  After  deducting  those  who  have 
been  slaughtered  and  those  sunk  in  the  Bitter  Waters,  there 
still  remain  a  hundred  of  the  first-class  cattle  and  forty  herders 
to  be  sent  on  to  the  palace.2 

On  their  last  expedition,  when  the  Assyrians  entered  his 
land  and  made  a  destruction,  all  the  Elamites  rose  against 
their  lord.  In  fear  of  both  his  new  and  his  old  enemies,  Hum- 
banhaltash  abandoned  Mataktu,  crossed  the  Ulai  with  all  his 
clansmen,  and  took  refuge  in  Dalah  among  the  mountains. 
When  Bel-ibni  saw  that  their  troops  were  few  while  the  As- 

1  H.  1000.  2  H.  520. 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  CHALDEAN  EMPIRE  481 


Syrians  were  many,  he  crossed  over  and  took  up  his  position 
at  Bab  Marrat,  to  the  gods  of  the  king  they  prayed.  The 
abandoned  settlements,  including  Mataktu,  were  burned; 
Ashur-bani-apal  was  very  anxious  for  further  news  of  these 
burned  cities,  fearing  that  their  treasures  might  not  have  been 
rescued.  Bel-ibni  reassures  him  and  tells  of  treasure  safely 
carried  off  from  Mataktu.  But  he  must  pause  to  complain: 
“  Once  and  twice  have  I  sent  captives  and  three  hundred  horses 
to  the  lord  of  kings,  my  lord,  and  the  king  my  lord  has  vouch¬ 
safed  no  reply.  I  have  done  him  a  great  service  and  to  the 
lord  of  kings,  my  lord,  have  I  given  them,  but  the  heart  of  the 
lord  of  kings,  my  lord,  is  angry,  though  except  for  a  horse  for 
my  watch  and  two  or  three  that  were  sent  away,  I  have  for¬ 
warded  all  to  the  lord  of  kings,  my  lord.”  1 

This  is  a  propitious  time  to  send  an  embassy:  “If  you  do 
not  quickly  seize  Nabu-bel-shumate  and  the  ambassadors  of 
Shamash-shum-ukin  and  hand  them  over,  I  will  destroy  you 
all.”  Ashur-bani-apal  accepted  the  suggestion  and  the  em¬ 
bassy  was  sent.  In  July  of  645  Humbanhaltash  promised  to 
comply  with  the  demands  of  his  “brother.”  From  the  be¬ 
ginning  the  Sealanders  have  been  sinners  against  Assyria  and 
it  was  from  there  that  Nabu-bel-shumate  came.  Nabu-bel- 
shumate  and  the  Sealanders  who  broke  into  Lahiru  have  sinned 
against  both  kings:  “If  they  are  in  my  land,  I  will  send  them 
by  their  hands;  if  they  have  crossed  the  river,  do  thou  take 
them.”  2 

This  is  evidently  the  true  account  of  the  “seventh”  ex¬ 
pedition  which  Ashur-bani-apal  narrates  against  Elam.  It 
began  in  June  and  Ashur-bani-apal,  who  commanded  in  per¬ 
son,  carried  Tammaritu  with  him.  Men  of  the  cities  of  Hilmu, 
Pillatu,  Dumuqu,  Sula,  Lahiru,  Dibirina,  places  with  which 
we  have  in  part  already  become  familiar,  heard  of  the  royal 
approach,  and  with  flocks  and  herds  hastened  to  Assyria.  Bit 
Imbi,  which  had  formerly  been  the  royal  city  and  which  like 
a  great  wall  blocked  the  way  to  Elam,  had  been  taken  by 
Sennacherib,  but  the  Elamites  built  a  new  Bit  Imbi  in  front 
1H.  462;  794.  2  H.  462;  879. 


482 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  the  earlier.  The  new  Bit  Imbi  suffered  the  same  fate  as 
the  old,  the  defenders  who  had  refused  surrender  were  de¬ 
capitated  or  had  their  lips  cut  off,  they  were  carried  for  ex¬ 
hibition  to  Assyria.  Imbappi,  the  resident,  or,  according  to 
another  account,  the  commander  of  the  bowmen  of  Bit  Imbi, 
a  son-in-law  of  Humbanhaltash,  was  made  captive  and  with 
him  the  wife  and  children  of  Tep  Humban.  Humbanhaltash 
heard  of  the  approach  of  the  Assyrian  king  and  fled  from  Ma- 
taktu  to  a  mountain.  This  flight,  at  least,  we  have  heard  of 
before,  but  it  was  from  Bel-ibni  and  not  from  Ashur-bani-apal. 
Humbanhaltash,  who  had  fled  to  the  city  of  Bubilu,  after  Elam 
had  revolted,  and  had  established  himself  on  the  throne  of 
Elam,  left  Bubilu  and  like  a  fish  fled  to  the  bottom  of  distant 
waters.  Tammaritu  was  reinstated  in  Susa  by  the  Assyrians, 
but  he  plotted  against  them,  saying:  “The  people  of  Elam, 
in  whatever  direction  they  turn,  are  subject  to  Elam;  they 
will  enter  and  take  the  booty  of  Elam.”  The  gods  therefore 
deposed  Tammaritu  and  the  Assyrians  marched  victoriously 
through  all  Elam.  The  campaign  is  ended  with  a  long  list  of 
cities  made  captive  and  of  spoil  of  wagons,  horses,  and  mules. 

Bel-ibni  knows  nothing  of  Tammaritu;  according  to  him  it 
was  Intapigash  who  must  be  driven  out  when  Humbanhaltash 
returned.  Humbanshibar,  the  Elamite  nagir,  has  deserted, 
for  they  say:  “We  will  settle  among  the  Huhan  tribe  or  in 
Hidalu.”  They  are  all  in  fear  of  the  royal  troops,  they  have 
seen  misfortune,  fear  has  entered  them.  Hunger  has  broken 
out  among  them,  the  whole  land  has  fallen  away  from  them. 
The  Dahhasharua  and  the  Shallukea  have  all  revolted  against 
them,  saying:  “Why  have  you  killed  Umhuluma?” 

On  the  day  when  Humbanhaltash  entered  into  Mataktu, 
he  collected  all  his  confidants,  he  spoke  judgment  with  them: 
“Did  I  not  tell  you  before  I  fled  that  I  would  seize  Nabu-bel- 
shumate  and  surrender  him  to  the  Assyrian  king,  so  that  he 
might  not  send  his  troops  against  us?  You  did  not  obey  me, 
you  are  witness  of  my  word.”  Bel-ibni  still  has  advice  to  offer: 
“Behold,  if  it  is  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  lord  of  kings,  my  lord, 
let  them  bring  me  a  sealed  order  that  Humbanhaltash  should 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  CHALDEAN  EMPIRE  483 


seize  Nabu-bel-shumate  and  I  will  as  secretly  send  it  to  the 
king  of  Elam.  Perhaps  my  lord  will  say :  ‘  The  idea  is  good  but 
I  will  send  a  secret  letter  direct  to  them.’  Now  when  the  am¬ 
bassador  of  the  king  my  lord  goes  with  an  escort  to  Humban- 
haltash,  then  will  that  smitten  of  Bel,  Nabu-bel-shumate, 
hear  of  it,  he  will  pay  a  ransom  to  his  nobles  and  will  save  him¬ 
self.  Perchance  the  gods  of  the  lord  of  kings,  my  lord,  will  so 
bring  it  about  that  they  will  take  him  with  unstrung  bow  and 
will  send  him  to  the  lord  of  kings,  my  lord.” 

They  are  collecting  all  the  grain  levied  as  impost  in  Elam; 
they  distribute  it  through  the  sharnuppu  officials,  and  thus 
these  officials  secure  their  living.  They  distribute  it  from 
Dalah  to  Rade,  and  the  Shallukea  tribe  give  it  to  them.  As 
long  as  Umhuluma  lived,  when  he  knocked  at  the  door,  Nabu- 
bel-shumate  was  in  fear  for  his  confederates.  Now  Nabu-bel- 
shumate  and  his  majordomo  Nishhur  Bel  seize  every  shar¬ 
nuppu  they  can  find  and  they  say:  “If  you  demand  it  for 
Umhuluma,  you  are  depriving  us  of  our  means  of  support, 
you  are  destroying  the  men  of  our  house  with  hunger;  behold, 
to  the  very  last  qa  and  a  half,  you  must  restore  the  grain  which 
you  have  stolen.”  Report  of  this  has  been  made  to  Humban- 
haltash;  he  has  made  demand  two  and  three  times,  he  has  not 
yet  secured  it  from  their  hands.1 

Near  the  end  of  January,  642,  there  arrived  before  Bel-ibni 
a  certain  Bel-upahhir,  the  son  of  Marduk-shum-ibni,  the  shup- 
parshaq  official,  who  had  been  sent  with  a  message  from  Hum- 
banshibar.  He  begs  that  an  embassy  go  to  the  king  of  Elam 
and  asks :  “What  is  the  sin  we  have  sinned  against  thee ?  Wilt 
thou  not  enlighten  us  concerning  the  whole  matter?  Elam 
will  deliver  up  Nabu-bel-shumate  rather  than  live  in  shame.” 
Before  this  message  could  be  forwarded  to  the  Assyrian  king, 
a  second  embassy  arrived  with  the  news  that  Nabu-bel-shu¬ 
mate  was  no  more.  When  he  learned  that  Humbanhaltash 
had  at  last  determined  to  surrender  him,  he  despaired  and 
ordered  his  faithful  squire  to  kill  him,  so  they  fell  upon  each 
other  and  they  died. 

lH.  281;  cf.  1286. 


484 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Preserved  in  salt,  the  corpse  was  sent  on  with  the  head  of 
the  shield-bearer  to  Bel-ibni,  who  promised  to  bring  it  in  per¬ 
son  to  the  Assyrian  monarch,  “ere  the  days  become  hot.’’ 
In  March  he  will  come  to  Assyria  to  view  the  king’s  face,  he 
will  bring  a  thousand  captives  with  him.  Since  provisions 
are  scant  in  the  land,  he  must  buy  grain  and  dates  from  the 
Puqudu,  giving  silver  in  exchange.  Let  the  king  send  one  of 
of  his  body-guard  to  bring  food  for  the  captives  on  the  way.1 
The  last  act  of  the  sordid  tragedy  was  staged  in  Assyria,  where 
Ashur-bani-apal  cut  off  the  head  from  the  corpse  of  Nabu- 
bel-shumate  and  hung  it  around  the  neck  of  Nabu-qata-sabat 
of  Bit  Sin-magir,  an  official  of  the  dead  Shamash-shum-ukin. 

On  the  day  that  he  set  forth  from  the  Sealands,  Bel-ibni 
sent  five  hundred  of  the  royal  troops  to  Zabdanu  with  the 
orders:  “Establish  a  garrison  in  Zabdanu,  make  raids  into 
Elam;  make  a  slaughter  and  carry  off  captives  to  the  city  of 
Irgidu.”  Evidently,  even  the  surrender  of  Nabu-bel-shumate 
had  not  sufficed  to  keep  permanent  peace  between  Elam  and 
Assyria.  When  they  reached  the  city  of  Irgidu,  distant  only 
two  double  hours  from  Susa,  they  killed  Ammaladin,  prince 
of  Iashian,  Dala-ilu,  son  of  Abiate,  and  two  hundred  nobles 
of  the  city.  The  journey  was  long,  but  a  hundred  and  fifty 
prisoners  rewarded  it.  When  the  princes  of  Lahiru  and  of 
the  Nuga  tribe  saw  that  the  Assyrians  were  upon  them,  they 
feared  and  gave  themselves  up,  they  made  a  treaty  with  his 
sister’s  son,  Mushezib  Marduk,  whom  Bel-ibni  had  placed 
over  the  garrison.  They  made  their  solemn  declaration,  “Ser¬ 
vants  of  the  king  of  Assyria  are  we,”  collected  their  bowmen, 
and  proceeded  with  Mushezib  Marduk  to  Elam.  News  sent 
back  by  Mushezib  Marduk  asserts  that  Humbanigash,  son  of 
Amedirra,  has  revolted  against  Humbanhaltash,  from  the 
River  Hudhud  to  the  city  of  Hindanu  they  have  taken  their 
stand  by  him;  Humbanhaltash  has  brought  together  his  forces 
and  now  they  face  each  other  on  the  river  banks.  Iqisha-apal 
has  been  sent  to  the  palace  to  present  the  latest  news  from 
Elam.2 


1  H.  792;  1284. 


2  H.  280. 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  CHALDEAN  EMPIRE  485 


This  is  the  latest  and  the  last  authentic  news  from  Elam. 
These  letters  must  belong  to  the  first  portion  of  the  events 
which  the  official  historian  has  taken  as  the  basis  for  the 
11  eighth”  campaign  of  the  king.  For  a  second  time,  we  are 
told,  Ashur-bani-apal  captured  Bit  Imbi,  Rashi,  and  Hamanu. 
When  this  news  came  to  Humbanhaltash,  he  again  fled  from 
Mataktu  and  took  refuge  in  Dur  Undasu,  which  the  scribe 
has  forgotten  was  made  Assyrian  in  the  previous  expedition. 
Ashur-bani-apal  crossed  the  Idide  and  behind  its  protection 
prepared  for  battle.  Again  cities  were  taken,  seven  of  which 
had  been  secured  on  the  preceding  trip.  As  it  was  in  flood, 
the  Assyrians  feared  to  ford  the  Idide,  and  only  a  dream  from 
Ishtar  of  Arbela,  rather  far  from  home  to  be  sure,  induced 
them  to  cross.  Fourteen  royal  cities  and  twelve  regions  fell 
to  the  invaders,  and  Humbanhaltash  fled  to  his  ahvays-ready 
mountain.  The  Assyrians  captured  Bununu  and  the  other 
cities  on  the  border  of  Hidalu,  the  men  were  slain,  the  gods 
were  spoiled  to  appease  the  spirit  of  the  lord  of  lords. 

We  have  no  check  from  the  letters  for  the  statements  which 
follow.  After  penetrating  sixty  double  hours  into  Elam,  we 
learn,  the  expedition  returned  to  Susa,  the  great  city,  the  seat 
of  their  gods,  the  place  of  their  oracles;  first  of  all  Assyrian 
kings,  Ashur-bani-apal  entered  the  palace  of  the  kings  of  Elam 
and  opened  their  treasure-house.  All  the  spoil  carried  off  in 
former  times  or  given  in  payment  by  Shamash-shum-ukin, 
precious  stones  and  metals,  clothing  and  weapons,  palace  furni¬ 
ture,  chariots,  horses  and  mules  with  trappings  of  silver  and 
gold,  for  the  last  time  the  reader  will  be  troubled  with  such 
a  list.  The  palace  furniture  in  particular,  that  on  which  the 
king  sat,  lay,  ate,  drank,  washed,  anointed  himself,  became 
Assyrian  prey. 

Encased  with  lapis  lazuli  and  shining  with  bronze  horns, 
the  temple  tower  of  the  chief  shrine  was  torn  down.  Shushi- 
nak,  the  god  of  their  oracles,  who  dwelt  in  hidden  places,  whose 
divine  authority  none  saw,  and  many  of  his  attendant  gods 
and  goddesses,  with  all  their  belongings,  priests,  and  temple 
servants,  were  carried  off  to  Assyria.  Thirty-two  statues  of 


48G 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


their  kings,  of  silver  and  gold,  of  bronze  and  white  marble, 
were  taken  from  Susa,  Mataktu,  and  Huradi.  Included  among 
them  were  statues  of  Humbanigash  I,  son  of  Humbandara,  of 
Shutruk  Nahhunte  II,  of  the  later  Tammaritu,  of  Hallutush. 
The  latter,  though  he  had  fought  only  with  the  grandfather 
of  Ashur-bani-apal,  suffered  especially  evil  treatment  in  effigy, 
for  the  mouth  of  the  statue  was  cut  off,  its  lips  torn  out,  and 
the  hand  which  held  the  bow  was  amputated.  The  winged 
lions  and  bulls,  the  guardian  gods  who  watched  over  the  tem¬ 
ples,  were  dragged  away,  the  temples  were  razed,  the  secret 
forests  which  no  stranger  had  ever  entered  were  burned  by 
the  Assyrian  troops.  The  burial-places  of  the  kings  were  all 
destroyed,  their  bones  were  conveyed  to  Assyria,  where,  in 
a  foreign  land,  their  shades  were  deprived  of  food  and  drink, 
and  no  repose  was  allowed  them.  So  terrible  a  fate  for  long- 
dead  enemies  is  fortunately  rare  in  the  Assyrian  annals. 

For  almost  two  months,  Elam  was  wasted.  The  dust  of 
their  cities  was  brought  to  the  Assyrian  land.  The  voice  of 
men,  the  movement  of  flocks  and  of  herds,  the  sound  of  music 
was  no  longer  heard  in  its  fields.  Wild  asses,  gazelles,  the 
beasts  of  the  open  fields,  were  permitted  to  lie  down  in  its  midst. 
One  thousand  five  hundred  and  thirty-five  years  before  Kutir 
Nahhunte  had  carried  off  the  goddess  Nana  from  her  Eanna 
temple  in  Uruk;1  Ashur-bani-apal  had  demanded  her  return 
from  Humbanhaltash  but  in  vain,  now  she  took  the  straight 
road  to  her  home,  which  she  reached  near  the  end  of  November. 
Of  the  captives,  some  were  devoted  to  the  gods  and  sacrificed, 
the  soldiers  were  added  to  the  army,  the  remainder  was  dis¬ 
tributed  among  the  nobles. 

And  then  comes  the  anticlimax.  Humbanhaltash  returns 
for  the  third  time  from  his  mountain,  for  the  third  time  he 
reoccupies  his  plundered  city  of  Mataktu.  It  is  a  sad  slip  of 
the  scribe,  for  it  leaves  no  doubt  that  we  are  dealing  with  an¬ 
other  raid  such  as  Bel-ibni  was  wont  to  report  to  his  master 
in  Assyria. 

1  In  reality,  this  took  place  in  1173;  cf.  p.  58;  a  thousand  years  should  be  de¬ 
ducted  ! 


FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  CHALDEAN  EMPIRE  487 


As  the  story  continues,  the  narrative  is  not  free  from  difficul¬ 
ties.  The  place  of  the  much-driven-out  Humbanhaltash  is 
taken  by  Pae,  who  appears  in  the  letters  only  as  the  resident 
of  the  Aramaean  land  whose  messenger  came  to  Nippur  to  re¬ 
port  that  the  kings  came  to  an  agreement,  one  with  another.1 
According  to  Ashur-bani-apal,  Pae  soon  fled  from  Elam  and 
embraced  his  feet.  Then  wx  learn  of  the  rebels  in  the  various 
cities  who  had  retreated  before  his  former  expeditions  to 
Saladri,  a  difficult  mountain,  but  who  finally  descended,  sur¬ 
rendered,  and  were  added  to  his  bowmen.  Two  columns  later, 
after  the  recital  of  the  Arabian  wars,  we  hear  of  the  fourth 
flight  of  Humbanhaltash  from  his  revolted  servants,  for  the 
fourth  and  last  time  he  escapes  to  his  by  now  most  familiar 
mountain.  Brought  down  like  a  falcon,  he  was  carried  alive 
to  Assyria;  together  with  Tammaritu,  Pae,  and  the  Arab  Yatha, 
he  dragged  the  king’s  chariot  to  Emashmash,  the  Ishtar  tem¬ 
ple  in  Nineveh. 

Thus  ends  the  last  of  the  Assyrian  historical  writings.  With¬ 
out  doubt,  much  of  the  account  is  untrue,  for  the  successive 
editions  issued  for  Ashur-bani-apal  successively  degenerate  in 
historical  value.  Yet  a  capture  and  destruction  of  Susa  is 
proved  by  the  completely  splintered  native  monuments  found 
by  the  excavators.  A  certain  Mannu-ki  Ashur  is  listed  as 
governor  of  Susa,  a  Pudiu  as  that  of  Elam,  another  has  lost 
his  name.  The  author  of  one  of  the  Aramaic  letters  inter¬ 
calated  in  the  Book  of  Ezra  lists  men  of  Susa,  the  Dahha,  and 
the  Elamites  as  part  of  the  nations  settled  in  Samaria  by  the 
great  and  noble  Osnappar,  in  whom  scholars  are  agreed  that 
we  should  recognise  Ashur-bani-apal.2 

At  the  same  time,  the  letters  come  to  a  sudden  stop.  Where 
a  moment  before  we  have  been  listening  to  the  very  words  of 
the  chief  participants,  now  we  have  a  dead  silence.  We  ask 
the  fate  of  our  old  friends  of  the  letters,  in  particular  we  would 
know  what  was  happening  to  Bel-ibni  and  the  little  empire 
he  was  building  up;  only  his  presumed  relationship  to  Nabo- 
polassar  makes  it  possible  to  conjecture  that  much  was  hap- 
1  H.  1115.  2  Ezra  4:  9. 


488 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


pening  and  in  his  favour  in  this  period  of  darkness.  The  events 
last  discussed  took  place  about  640;  from  this  to  the  end  of 
the  reign  in  626,  we  have  only  the  business  documents. 

An  uneasy  consciousness  of  impending  disaster  overhung 
the  court,  and  not  all  the  claims  of  a  less  and  less  honest  his¬ 
tory  could  conceal  the  danger  on  every  side.  No  longer  were 
the  gods  to  be  found  in  their  accustomed  shrines,  they  were 
angered  at  their  worshippers.  In  May  of  645,  for  example, 
the  king  appointed  a  solemn  day  of  lamentation  which,  as  he 
informed  Kudur,  should  be  observed  by  the  leaders  in  Akkad 
in  the  following  month.  Lamentation  and  the  putting  on  of 
mourning  garments  is  ordered  and  wine  is  to  be  poured  out 
before  the  deities.  Nana,  Usur-amatsu,  Arkaitu,  the  god¬ 
desses  of  Uruk,  are  to  be  especially  besought.  After  they  have 
forgiven  the  sins  committed  by  their  devotees,  after  they  have 
changed  the  weeping  into  joy,  then  it  may  be  hoped  that  they 
will  restore  the  temporal  power  into  the  hands  of  the  king.1 

1 H.  518. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 

Degenerate  and  a  monster  of  cruelty  Ashur-bani-apal 
might  be  called  by  his  enemies,  there  was  a  more  amiable  side 
to  his  character.  In  that  puzzling  contradiction  so  often  found 
in  certain  personalities  of  history,  he  owned  a  very  genuine 
interest  in  culture  of  every  sort.  Above  all  other  periods,  his 
reign  marks  the  golden  age  of  Assyrian  art  and  Assyrian  litera¬ 
ture  and  for  its  glories  he  deserves  no  small  credit. 

Alone  of  Assyrian  kings,  he  gives  us  his  autobiography,  and 
the  greater  portion  of  it  is  devoted  to  his  education.  He 
learned  to  read  the  learned  Shumerian  or  the  obscure  Akka¬ 
dian.  Present-day  scholars  who  have  passed  beyond  the  con¬ 
ventional  first  year’s  course  in  Assyrian,  who  have  attacked 
the  Babylonian  of  a  dozen  or  fifteen  centuries  before  with  its 
wilderness  of  variant  sign  forms  and  its  differences  in  phonetics 
and  vocabulary,  and  have  then  attempted  the  agglutinative 
Shumerian,  the  very  reverse  of  all  inflected  languages  hitherto 
learned,  unless  one  has  perchance  travelled  in  the  Turkish¬ 
speaking  portions  of  the  Near  East,  will  sympathise  with  the 
young  prince.  He  was  fortunate  in  having  a  learned  instruc¬ 
tor,  Nabu-ahe-eriba,  and  there  was  at  his  disposal  the  whole 
apparatus  by  whose  aid  generations  of  students  had  mastered 
a  language  so  utterly  apart  from  their  own.  To  this  day  we 
possess  a  dictionary  of  Shumerian  prepared  by  one  of  his 
scribes  while  Ashur-bani-apal  was  still  crown  prince.1 

This  interest  he  retained  throughout  his  reign  and  it  ulti¬ 
mately  resulted  in  the  formation  of  a  great  royal  library.  Such 
a  library  was  not,  as  has  been  generally  supposed,  a  novelty 
in  an  Assyrian  palace.  His  great  grandfather  Sargon  has  left 
his  library  mark  on  a  number  of  tablets  and  a  somewhat  larger 
number  were  copied  by  individuals  whose  activity  extended 

1  Delitzsch,  Lesestiicke,  3  ed.,  80;  Johns,  AJSL.,  XXXIV,  60  ff. 

489 


490 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


through  his  reign  and  into  that  of  his  successor.  Letters  from 
the  close  of  Esarhaddon’s  reign  speak  of  the  preparation  and 
copying  of  tablets,  many  of  which  were  in  Shumerian.  These, 
however,  were  not  copied  primarily  for  preservation  in  the 
library  but  for  special  and  very  practical  occasions,  such  as 
the  installation  of  the  crown  princes.  To  judge  from  the  ex¬ 
tant  remains,  these  collections  were  comparatively  small. 

It  is  indeed  to  the  honour  of  Ashur-bani-apal  that  through 
his  personal  interest  there  was  brought  to  the  libraries  of  Nine¬ 
veh  almost  en  masse  the  wisdom  of  the  Babylonian  past.  A 
“word  of  the  king”  to  Shadunu  illustrates  the  instructions  to 
the  subordinates  who  were  to  collect  the  material.  The  day 
he  sees  the  tablet,  he  is  to  take  Shuma,  son  of  Shum-ukin,  his 
brother  Bel-etir,  and  Aplia,  son  of  Arkat-ilani,  together  with 
the  men  of  Borsippa  with  whom  he  is  acquainted.  He  is  to 
search  out  all  their  tablets,  whether  they  are  in  their  houses 
or  deposited  in  Ezida.  Ashur-bani-apal  particularly  desires 
certain  series,  such  as  those  dealing  with  the  river  ceremonies 
of  the  months  of  April  and  October,  with  the  royal  bed,  or 
the  incantation  beginning  “Ea  and  Marduk  have  completed 
wisdom  and  its  securing.”  Incantations  dealing  with  war¬ 
fare,  such  as  “In  the  battle  no  spear  shall  come  near  the  man,” 
“Going  into  the  field  or  entering  the  palace,”  as  well  as  ritual 
texts  and  prayers,  the  “lifting  up  of  the  hands,”  should  be 
included.  Whatever  is  written  on  stones,  “such  as  are  of  ad¬ 
vantage  for  my  royalty,”  is  not  to  be  neglected;  Ashur-bani- 
apal  desired  models  for  his  own  historical  efforts.  “The  puri¬ 
fication  of  the  city,”  “The  view  of  the  eye,”  “For  the  agony 
and  every  need”  form  another  category.  Let  every  tablet 
in  their  own  apartments,  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  in  the  As¬ 
syrian,  be  sought  out  and  forwarded.  Instructions  have  been 
sent  the  shatam  and  shaku  officials,  no  one  shall  refuse  him  a 
tablet.  If  any  tablet  or  ritual  text  not  specifically  listed  be 
thought  of  advantage  to  the  palace,  let  that  too  be  sent.1 

Once  we  stumble  upon  a  reference  to  earlier  history. 
Asharidu  is  writing  from  Kutu:  “The  tablet  which  the  king 

1  Thompson,  Letters,  No.  1;  Martin,  Lettres,  18  ff.;  Klauber,  Alte  Orient,  XII,  22. 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 


491 


is  following  is  small  and  incorrect.  Now  the  original  tablet 
which  Hammurabi  the  king  prepared  contained  an  inscription 
dealing  with  Hammurabi  the  king,  as  I  have  written.  From 
Babylon  I  have  brought  it.”  We  might  thus  far  conjecture 
mere  antiquarian  interest  in  a  mighty  king  who  had  ruled 
Babylon  fourteen  centuries  before  himself,  but  Asharidu  con¬ 
tinues:  “Let  the  king  perform  the  ceremonies  at  once.”  There 
is  a  practical  reason  for  the  copy.1 

What  were  the  contents  of  this  library  and  what  was  the 
native  classification  of  its  books?  We  can  in  part  answer  these 
questions  by  noting  the  various  types  of  labels  which  were 
suffixed  to  the  tablets.  A  few  follow  the  earlier  custom  and 
are  merely  marked:  “Palace  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  the 
world,  king  of  Assyria.”  As  the  number  of  tablets  grew,  stamps 
were  prepared  which  printed  the  whole  phrase  at  once  and 
in  large  characters.  More  colophons  form  a  regular  paragraph 
in  themselves,  beginning  with  an  elaborate  genealogy  and 
ending  with  emphatic  curses  on  those  who  would  destroy  the 
work  of  his  hand.  A  common  form  declared  that  “in  agree¬ 
ment  with  the  original  tablets  and  documents  I  caused  copies 
of  the  Assyrian,  Shumerian,  and  Akkadian  to  be  written,  com¬ 
piled,  and  revised  in  the  chancellery  of  the  experts,  and  as 
precious  possessions  of  my  royalty  I  made  them  to  be  laid 
up.” 

For  the  bilingual  and  grammatical  texts,  a  fuller  paragraph 
testified  to  their  value  in  his  own  learned  education:  “Palace 
of  Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  the  world,  king  of  Assyria,  who 
trusts  Ashur  and  Ninlil,  to  whom  Nabu  and  Tashmetum  have 
granted  a  wide-open  ear,  and  have  endowed  me  with  clear  in¬ 
sight  into  the  noble  art  of  writing;  whereas  none  of  the  kings 
who  had  preceded  me  had  acquired  that  art,  the  wisdom  of 
Nabu,  the  grouping  of  all  extant  collections  on  tablets  I  wrote, 
compiled,  and  revised,  and  placed  them  to  be  seen  and  revised 
in  my  palace.”  Whether  we  are  to  accept  as  exact  truth  the 
rather  startling  statement  as  to  the  illiteracy  of  the  earlier 
Sargonid  monarchs,  Ashur-bani-apal  is  certainly  making  claims 

1 H.  255. 


492 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


to  unusual  learning.  The  contrast  with  his  grandfather  is 
especially  instructive;  Sennacherib  boasts  of  his  personal  ability 
as  shown  in  the  introduction  of  new  mechanical  devices,  Ashur- 
bani-apal  is  chiefly  interested  in  the  knowledge  of  the  past. 

We  should  nevertheless  be  mistaken  did  we  assume  that 
he  was  less  practical  than  his  predecessor,  that  he  was  more 
imbued  with  the  modern  ideal  of  knowledge  for  knowledge’s 
sake.  He  is  the  “  darling  of  the  great  god,  to  whom  Shamash 
and  Adad  have  given  a  wide-open  ear  and  the  science  of  the 
seer,  the  mystery  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  wisdom  of  Shamash 
and  Adad  has  he  learned,  with  it  his  breast  has  been  filled,” 
but  it  is  only  that  he  might  the  better  utilise  the  portents  fur¬ 
nished  by  these  gods,  for  this  colophon  appears  on  the  omen 
tablets  by  whose  means  Shamash  and  Adad  gave  advice  as 
to  the  conduct  of  the  empire.  A  practical  purpose  appears 
again  in  the  notes  to  the  medical  texts,  where  he  speaks  of 
“  healing  and  the  work  of  the  lancet’s  lord,  the  placing  in  order 
of  the  sorcerer’s  task,  the  complete  knowledge  of  the  great 
medical  art  of  Urta  and  Gula,”  which  he  prepared  for  his  col¬ 
lection.  Nabu,  the  patron  saint  of  writing,  is  besought  in  a 
formal  prayer  to  look  in  future  days  with  approval  on  the 
library  and  to  grant  grace  to  Ashur-bani-apal.1 

Every  phase  of  Babylonian  literature  was  represented  in 
the  library.  By  scholars  of  the  last  generation,  this  collection 
was  studied  for  a  knowledge  of  Babylonian  rather  than  of 
Assyrian  thought.  Within  our  own  generation,  its  value  in 
this  respect  has  been  much  decreased.  We  now  possess  a 
wealth  of  documents  from  the  first  dynasty  of  Babylon,  and 
we  can  see  that  the  library  copies  were  derived  from  the  re¬ 
censions  prepared  at  this  date  and  systematically  redacted 
to  increase  the  prestige  of  Marduk.  For  earlier  centuries,  we 
can  use  their  data  only  with  the  utmost  caution,  a  caution 
which  is  shown  to  be  amply  justified  when  we  compare  these 
Marduk  crammed  editions  with  those  from  the  dynasty  of 
Ur,  four  hundred  years  before,  when  Marduk  was  unknown 
to  divine  society.  Internal  evidence,  supported  by  a  few  ac- 

1  Colophons  collected,  Streck,  Assurbaniapal,  354  ff . 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 


493 


tual  examples  from  still  earlier  periods,  shows  that  the  origins 
must  often  be  sought  in  times  almost  prehistoric,  when  Enlil  of 
Nippur,  or  even  Ea  of  Eridu,  was  the  dominant  god  in  the 
pantheon. 

As  the  value  of  the  documents  in  the  library  of  Ashur-bani- 
apal  has  progressively  lessened  for  the  study  of  Babylonian 
literature,  religion,  and  customs,  there  should  have  been  a 
renewed  interest  in  another  question,  the  degree  to  which 
they  are  Assyrian  and  not  Babylonian.  Our  letters  show  the 
actual  process  of  transportation  from  the  alluvium,  and  we 
might  expect  them  to  be  exact  reproductions  of  their  exemplars. 
But  Ashur-bani-apal  specifically  and  repeatedly  asserts  that 
they  were  not  merely  copied  from  their  originals,  they  were 
compiled  and  revised.  Investigation  in  detail  would  surprise 
the  investigator  by  the  large  number  of  cases  in  which  this 
Assyrian  revision  has  resulted  in  essential  change. 

An  already  quoted  prayer  used  by  Shamash-shum-ukin  in 
his  moment  of  ultimate  woe  is  a  striking  illustration.  A  prayer 
to  the  moon-god,  it  can  be  traced  back  to  an  origin  at  least 
as  early  as  the  first  dynasty  of  Babylon.  Transported  to  As¬ 
syria,  its  whole  character  was  changed  by  an  interpolation  of  ten 
lines  which  made  it  now  an  appeal  by  the  king  in  the  ominous 
period  at  the  end  of  the  month  when  the  moon-god  temporarily 
withdrew  his  light.1  A  careful  collection  of  all  the  interpola¬ 
tions  made  by  the  Assyrian  scribes  to  their  Babylonian  orig¬ 
inals  would  throw  as  valuable  a  light  on  the  characteristics 
of  Assyrian  literature  and  religion  as  do  the  insertions  made 
by  the  Hebrew  scribes  after  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Bible 
had  been  executed. 

By  no  means  all  the  tablets  shelved  in  the  library  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal  were  copied  from  Babylonia.  Nearly  a  thousand 
business  documents,  fifteen  hundred  letters,  a  large  group  of 
omen  texts,  are  firmly  dated  to  the  last  Assyrian  century.  To¬ 
day  we  call  them  archival  material,  but  the  Assyrians  saw  no 
reason  why  they  should  not  be  placed  side  by  side  with  the 
other  writings.  Many  of  the  letters,  those  of  Adad-shum-usur 
i  Langdon,  PSBA.,  XXXIV,  152  ff.;  XL,  106  f. 


494 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


in  particular,  are  deliberate  literary  productions.  The  mass 
of  the  literary  compositions,  properly  so  called,  shares  the 
anonymity  which  shrouds  so  much  of  oriental  writing,  but  a 
more  careful  examination  will  doubtless  prove  that  many  can 
be  dated  to  the  reign. 

For  no  reign  do  we  possess  so  large  an  amount  of  literary 
material  which  may  be  exactly  dated  because  of  its  association 
with  the  reigning  monarch.  Edition  after  edition  of  the  his¬ 
torical  chronicles  was  issued,  and  each  marked  an  improve¬ 
ment  in  the  eyes  of  a  literary  king,  if  not  in  the  eyes  of  the 
modern  historian  who  must  sift  the  facts  from  the  rhetoric 
or  the  deliberate  misrepresentation.  Scattered  through  them 
are  passages  which  represent  the  highest  flights  of  the  As¬ 
syrian  literary  art,  and  if  some  of  them  sound  a  little  too  rhe¬ 
torical  to  suit  the  present-day  taste  for  realism,  others,  such 
as  the  messianic  sections,  will  compare  with  the  messianic 
chapters  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  doubtless  they  helped 
to  suggest.  To  what  extent  this  Renaissance  in  the  writing 
art  is  directly  due  to  its  royal  patron  may  be  a  question;  in 
view  of  the  marked  individuality  of  some  of  the  passages,  such 
as  the  autobiography,  in  view  also  of  his  specific  claims  to 
literary  excellence,  it  would  be  rash  to  deny  that  some  at  least 
embody  the  actual  words  of  the  scholar  king. 

In  no  respect  was  Ashur-bani-apal  behind  his  predecessors 
in  his  building.  All  Babylonia  rejoiced  in  his  constructions; 
in  Nippur  and  the  south  they  were  in  his  own  right,  in  Baby¬ 
lon  and  its  vicinity  Shamash-shum-ukin  was  associated,  but 
the  letters  show  the  claim  of  the  northern  brother  to  the  greater 
part  was  no  idle  boast.  Structures  erected  in  Assyria  could 
be  assigned  to  no  other  person.  As  crown  prince,  Ashur-bani- 
apal  had  enjoyed  a  palace  his  father  erected  for  him  in  Tar- 
bisu.  The  standard  of  Nabu,  housed  in  a  northern  Eshitlam, 
had  fallen  into  decay,  but  was  restored  by  the  filial  love  of  the 
king.  Ashur’s  temple  in  his  namesake  city  had  not  been 
brought  to  completion;  Esarhaddon’s  son  covered  the  walls 
with  gold  and  silver,  plated  high  columns  with  the  less-precious 
metal,  and  set  them  up  in  the  gate  “  Fulness  of  the  Lands.  ” 


Fig.  151.  DOOR-SILL  IN  THE  PALACE  OF  ASHUR-BANI-APAL. 


Fig.  152.  NETTING  THE  DEER 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 


495 


Ashur  entered  his  chamber  of  eternity  and  his  consort  abode 
in  a  renovated  Esharra. 

Aid  given  through  dreams  by  Ishtar  had  been  the  special 
reliance  of  Esarhaddon  and  was  likewise  of  his  son.  The  ac¬ 
cession  of  that  son  found  the  Arbela  temple  in  ruins,  the  inner 
wall  could  be  no  longer  traced,  the  outer  wall  was  incomplete. 
Both  were  ended,  the  feast-house  of  the  goddess  was  made 
to  shine  like  the  day  wdth  his  gifts  of  metals,  the  standard  at 
its  entrance  was  covered  with  gold  and  silver.  Ishtar ’s  temple 
at  Milkia,  Egal-edin,  “the  palace  of  the  open  field/’  was  in 
more  serious  state,  for  some  enemy  had  completely  destroyed 
the  city;  the  foundations  of  the  New  Year’s  House  were  laid 
with  ceremonial  mourning  and  completed  with  ceremonial  joy. 

Esarhaddon  had  been  a  devoted  worshipper  of  the  Sin  of 
Harran;  before  his  first  full  year,  Ashur-bani-apal  began  to 
clear  away  the  debris  of  the  ancient  temple  erected  by  Shal¬ 
maneser  III.  It  was  to  be  thirty  courses  high,  three  hundred 
and  fifty  long,  seventy-two  broad  for  the  eastern  portion  and 
a  hundred  and  thirty  from  the  back  of  the  city  to  its  centre. 
Its  foundation  was  of  stone  from  the  mighty  mountains,  its 
roof  was  of  cedar  and  cypress  felled  by  the  seacoast  kings,  and 
with  hardship  brought  from  their  difficult  recesses.  Ehulhul 
at  last  rightly  merited  its  name,  the  “House  of  Joy.” 

Great  doors  of  cypress  were  covered  with  silver-plating  and 
the  dwelling  of  Sin  with  seventy  talents  of  gleaming  zahalu. 
Two  mighty  wild  bulls  were  formed  in  the  same  manner  in 
silver  and  their  bodies  were  fashioned  from  twenty  talents  of 
hammered  bronze.  To  hurl  back  his  enemies  and  to  trample 
down  his  foes,  he  placed  in  the  gate  two  silver  figures  like 
Lahmu,  the  chaos  monster;  they  appeared  as  if  they  had  sprung 
from  the  deep,  they  protected  the  path  of  his  royalty,  they 
brought  in  the  fulness  of  mountain  and  sea.  Nusku,  the  ex¬ 
alted  messenger  of  the  gods,  found  his  Harran  shrine  Emela- 
manna  restored  within  the  great  temple. 

A  temple  estate,  granted  by  Sargon  and  then  taken  away, 
was  returned.  Ashur-bani-apal  had  not  forgotten  that  Har¬ 
ran  was  once  the  metropolis  of  Mitanni,  and  that  its  deity 


496 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


still  had  power  to  grant  sovereignty.  His  youngest  brother, 
Ashur-etil-shame-ersiti-uballitsu,  was  marked  as  an  urigallu 
priest  for  the  service  of  Sin  in  Harran;  he  was  to  be  but  the 
viceroy  of  his  brother  who  formally  took  the  hands  of  Sin  and 
Nusku,  and  was  thus  recognised  as  king  of  the  old  Mitanni. 

Babylon,  Ashur,  Harran,  all  these  might  be  highly  hon¬ 
oured,  but  the  true  capital  of  Assyria  was  Nineveh.  Sennach¬ 
erib  had  erected  mighty  walls,  but  through  “the  pouring 
rains  and  the  heavy  storms  which  Adad  had  caused  to  pour 
down  every  year  of  my  reign,”  they  had  fallen  into  disrepair. 
This  might  be  permitted  so  long  as  the  foes  of  Assyria  were  far 
away,  but  when  Shamash-shum-ukin  revolted,  the  walls  were 
hurriedly  put  into  shape.  Ishtar,  lady  of  the  lands,  had  in  the 
wrath  of  her  heart  deserted  her  temple  of  Emashmash,  she 
had  seated  herself  in  a  spot  not  worthy  her  exalted  nature. 
Restored  with  gold  and  silver,  Emashmash  gleamed  like  the 
stars,  the  writing  of  heaven.  Nabu  was  granted  in  the  capital 
an  Ezida  such  as  he  already  possessed  in  Kalhu,  and  here  was 
preserved  a  part  of  the  palace  library. 

The  larger  portion  of  the  library  was  conserved  in  Sennache¬ 
rib’s  palace,  the  residence  of  Ashur-bani-apal  in  his  earlier 
years.  One  of  the  unsculptured  rooms  was  covered  with  rep¬ 
resentations  of  the  defeat  of  Tep  Humban.  By  the  time  the 
revolt  of  his  brother  had  been  put  down,  the  palace  was  too 
ruinous  for  repair.  The  tender-hearted  Ashur-bani-apal  could 
not  endure  to  behold  its  downfall,  for  it  was  connected  by  too 
many  sentimental  ties  with  his  past.  Within  its  walls  he  had 
grown  up  to  maturity,  while  crown  prince  he  had  lived  under 
the  protection  of  its  gods,  after  he  had  seated  himself  on  his 
father’s  throne  they  had  sent  him  many  truthful  reports 
promising  the  defeat  of  his  enemies.  On  his  bed  of  night,  they 
had  granted  him  many  dreams  so  favourable  in  character  that 
he  had  rejoiced  at  their  memory  in  the  morning.  The  site, 
he  felt,  had  without  doubt  been  established  by  the  gods  for 
good  fortune,  it  brought  luck  for  its  lord. 

Hard  by  the  newly  cleared  ruins,  only  fifty  courses  distance 
away,  the  foundations  were  laid,  with  scrupulous  regard  to 


Fig.  154.  HUNTING  THE  LION  FROM  THE  CHARIOT 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 


497 


the  rights  of  the  gods  and  without  encroaching  on  their  area. 
On  an  auspicious  day  and  month,  the  walls  were  sprinkled 
with  wine,  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  brought  up  the  bricks 
on  the  heavy  Elamite  wagons.  Yoke  and  corvee  were  borne 
by  the  captive  Arab  kings,  they  carried  the  corner-stone. 
Cedar  beams  from  Sirara  and  Lebanon  formed  the  roof,  the 


©_ 
•is  WESTERN 
PORTAL 


Modern  drain 


ASCENDING  PA SSAGE_ . _ ^ \\ 

i  S  & 


Sca/e  of  Feet 
50 


^  Trace  of  Waff  Tost. 


Map  9.  PALACE  OF  ASHUR-BANI-APAL  AT  NINEVEH. 


bronze-covered  doors  were  of  sweet-smelling  liaru  cedar. 
Gleaming  bronze  sheathed  the  high  pillars,  which  were  placed 
upon  the  architrave  of  the  gate  to  the  Hittite  colonnade.  A 
great  park,  with  all  sorts  of  trees  and  fruits,  was  planted  near 
by,  the  predecessor  of  the  more  famous  hanging  gardens  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  to  judge  by  the  representations  on  the  slabs. 
With  elaborate  ceremony,  the  palace  was  dedicated  to  the 
gods  and  Ashur-bani-apal  entered  under  a  canopy. 

The  palace  seems  to  have  been  well  preserved  down  to 


498 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  plundering  meth¬ 
ods  of  so-called  excavation  then  in  vogue  were  applied  with 
unusual  thoroughness  to  this  ruin.  A  wonderful  booty  of 
sculptured  slabs  was  won,  but  neither  adequate  plan  nor  de¬ 
scription  was  ever  attempted. 

Roughly  quadrangular  in  shape  and  with  the  corners  di¬ 
rected  to  the  cardinal  points,  the  new  palace  was  to  occupy 
the  northern  angle  of  the  mound.  A  great  wall  of  uncut  stone 
with  facing  of  squared  blocks  enclosed  the  whole  area  and 
iron  gratings  covered  the  drain  exits.  The  only  entrance  now 
in  existence  is  at  the  northwest  corner.  The  visitor  passed 
between  two  columns,  turned  sharply  at  right  angles,  and 
found  himself  in  a  guard-room  whose  arched  inner  gate  was 
set  in  a  pier  of  solid  masonry.  This  formidable  barrier  safely 
negotiated,  he  slowly  ascended  a  long  covered  passageway 
along  the  northwest  wall  for  nearly  two  hundred  feet,  which 
was  lined  with  reliefs  showing  the  royal  stud  and  scenes  from 
the  hunt. 

Still  ascending,  the  road  turned  to  the  southeast  and  was 
carried  to  the  centre  of  the  structure,  where  a  rude  cross  was 
formed.  A  single  door  led  to  the  western  arm  of  the  cross,  a 
long  narrow  room  which  apparently  was  the  approach  to  the 
women’s  quarters.  Its  sculptures  represented  the  park,  with 
vines  trained  on  fir-trees,  with  lilies  and  other  flowers,  with 
musicians  and  tame  lions.  Particularly  worthy  of  notice  are 
the  arched  doorways,  one  with  a  double  row  of  rosettes  above 
the  arch  proper,  and  above  that  flat  lines  containing  other 
double  rows  of  rosettes  and  the  lotus  flower  and  bud.  Near 
by  a  room  illustrated  the  Elamite  campaigns. 

Beyond  the  axis  of  the  cross,  the  ascending  passageway 
opened  out  into  a  long  narrow  room  whose  walls  were  com¬ 
pletely  covered  by  the  lion-hunt,  the  supreme  achievement 
of  the  Assyrian  artist.  When  discovered,  it  was  filled  com¬ 
pletely  with  tablets.  The  eastern  arm  of  the  cross  led  through 
an  entrance-hall  twenty-four  feet  square  and  between  two 
columns  into  a  main  hall  eighty  feet  in  depth.  Four  irreg¬ 
ularly  placed  exits  break  the  monotony  of  the  unsculptured 


Figs.  155-156.  LION  HUNT,  ON  HORSEBACK. 
(Cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 


499 


walls.  The  ground  plan  is  very  strange  for  an  Assyrian  palace, 
it  seems  rather  an  anticipation  of  the  basilicar  type. 

If  the  visitor  passed  through  the  door  just  to  the  right  of 
the  columns,  he  traversed  a  small  court  and  was  then  in  a  huge 
hall,  one  hundred  and  forty-five  by  twenty-eight  feet,  the 
audience-chamber.  As  was  fitting,  the  sculptures  dealt  with 
the  most  important  events  of  the  reign,  the  Babylonian 
troubles,  while  in  the  room  to  the  right  the  latest  of  all  con¬ 
quests,  that  of  the  Arabs,  was  depicted. 

An  unusually  broad  opening  in  the  middle  of  the  left  side 
of  the  audience-chamber  led  down  a  flight  of  steps  to  a  great 
court,  paved  with  sculptured  slabs.  Their  border  was  of  con¬ 
ventionalised  lotus  flowers  and  buds,  a  motive  imported 
straight  from  Egypt,  next  came  a  row  of  rosettes,  and  with 
them  a  line  of  what  appears  exactly  like  the  Greek  acanthus. 
In  the  centre  were  rosette-ringed  squares  with  the  rosette- 
centred  quatrefoil  and  with  the  more  conventionalised  lotus 
flowers  between.  The  gate  to  which  this  led  has  disappeared 
with  the  crumbling  away  of  the  mound  edge.1 

Artists  unanimously  admit  that  the  reliefs  found  in  the 
palace  of  Ashur-bani-apal  represent  the  climax  of  Assyrian 
art.  The  slabs  of  a  historical  nature  follow  essentially  the 
types  of  their  predecessors,  from  which  they  are  chiefly  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  greater  attention  to  detail  and  by  finer  finish. 
The  peculiar  beauties  of  the  art  are  rather  to  be  found  in  the 
reliefs  which  deal  with  nature,  for  from  the  day  of  their  dis¬ 
covery  they  have  sufficed  to  give  Assyrian  art  a  unique  repu¬ 
tation. 

We  may  well  begin  with  the  most  famous  of  all,  the  slabs 
in  the  room  which  contains  the  lion-hunt.  The  oft-repeated 
reproach  that  the  Assyrian  artist  did  not  understand  com¬ 
position  must  be  waived  in  at  least  this  instance,  for  even  with 
the  too  numerous  gaps  in  the  recovered  series,  the  whole  forms 
an  artistic  unity. 

The  hunt  is  staged  in  an  open  part  of  the  park,  and  is  marked 
by  a  hunting-lodge  on  a  small  ruined  mound.  The  lions  are 

1  Plan,  Rassam,  TSBA.,  VII,  op.  p.  41;  cf.  Rawlinson,  Monarchies,  II,  213  ff. 


500 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


forced  out  into  the  open  by  soldiers  who  lock  their  round  shields 
into  a  solid  wall  while  they  threaten  the  beasts  with  their 
spears;  archers  behind  them  render  still  more  unlikely  their 
escape.  Into  the  enclosure  formed  by  the  spearmen  the  horses 
are  led  that  the  master  of  the  hunt  may  choose  the  two  who 
are  to  be  yoked  to  the  royal  chariot.  Lest  they  be  affrighted 
by  the  roaring  lions,  eunuchs  hold  before  them  screens  seven 
feet  high,  but  in  spite  of  this  precaution  the  master  of  the  hunt 
has  difficulty  in  harnessing  the  animals.  One  is  just  having 
his  last  strap  buckled,  the  other  is  trembling  at  the  sound,  his 
mouth  is  open,  his  ears  laid  back,  while  a  groom  pulls  down 
his  lifted  head  by  the  halter  and  attempts  to  back  him  into 
place.  The  charioteer  calmly  takes  the  reins,  the  king  reaches 
for  the  bow,  one  attendant  grasps  a  spear,  the  other  closes  the 
tail-board  of  the  chariot. 

Before  the  wall  of  soldiers  is  a  square  cage  of  logs  pegged 
to  the  ground,  and  upon  it  stands  a  smaller  cage  in  which  the 
attendant  cowers  as  he  lifts  the  bar  and  permits  the  lion  to 
spring  forth.  Our  next  scene  shows  the  king  in  full  pursuit 
of  the  maddened  beasts.  Behind  him  is  a  long  trail  of  dead 
and  dying  lions,  while  those  more  slightly  wounded  dash 
against  the  enclosing  line  of  soldiers.  On  the  edge  of  the  forest 
stand  hunters  with  huge  mastiffs  straining  at  the  leash.  Not 
all  the  men  are  so  brave;  the  eunuchs  and  unarmed  servants 
are  in  full  flight.  Some  attain  the  safety  of  the  artificial  mound, 
some  seem  determined  not  to  cease  their  mad  rush  before  reach¬ 
ing  the  palace.  Ashur-bani-apal  thinks  only  of  pursuit,  and 
the  lion  which  has  sprung  upon  the  rear  of  the  chariot  is  left 
to  the  companion  spearmen  to  despatch. 

Another  scene  shows  the  king  followed  by  his  companions 
on  horseback.  In  utmost  fury,  a  wounded  lion  has  seized  the 
chariot- wheel  in  his  jaws;  the  king  coolly  hands  over  his  bow 
to  a  eunuch  and  pierces  the  beast  with  his  spear.  Before  him 
is  a  lion,  shot  through  the  brain  and  in  his  last  agonies.  A 
terrible  danger  appears,  a  lion  is  actually  in  the  chariot;  before 
the  fearful  spearman  can  strike  him,  the  king  has  driven  his 
short  sword  through  his  neck. 


Fig.  157.  HUNTING  WILD  ASSES. 
(Cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 


—  -- 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 


501 


Alongside  a  group  of  servants  going  out  to  the  hunt  with 
all  the  paraphernalia  needed,  some  packed  on  muleback, 
others  carried  over  the  shoulders,  and  including  nets,  ropes, 
and  stakes,  we  see  the  return  from  the  hunt.  Before  struts 
the  master,  carrying  his  bow;  six  sturdy  eunuchs  follow,  the 
dead  lion  raised  high  in  their  arms.  Two  eunuchs  come  after, 
carrying  birds’  nests  filled  with  the  young,  a  grown  bird,  and 
a  hare.  Armed  guards  close  the  procession. 

The  lion-hunt  from  the  chariot  forms  a  single  huge  picture 
developed  over  an  entire  hail;  smaller  isolated  scenes  present 
the  lion-hunt  on  horseback  or  on  foot.  Ashur-bani-apal  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  saddle  and  leading  a  second  horse.  A  lion  bris¬ 
tling  with  arrows  has  seized  the  flank  of  the  horse,  who  lashes 
out  with  a  mighty  kick.  The  whole  effect  reminds  us  imme¬ 
diately  of  those  primitive  Greek  sculptures  of  the  lion  seizing 
the  bull,  such  as  occurs  in  the  earliest  pedimental  relief  from 
Athens.  Another  lion  attacks  the  king  himself ;  without  swerv¬ 
ing  his  mount,  he  drives  the  long  spear  directly  into  the  gaping 
mouth  and  the  tip  appears  below  the  mane. 

Behind  the  protection  of  a  long  shield  held  by  the  trembling 
squire,  the  dismounted  monarch  watches  three  lions.  One 
has  just  been  permitted  to  leave  his  cage,  the  second  is  about 
to  leap  at  the  royal  throat,  the  third  is  already  in  the  air  and 
is  being  threatened  by  the  spear-armed  attendant  while  the 
king  fits  an  arrow  to  the  bow.  Or  the  king  seizes  a  rearing 
lion  by  the  tail,  and  his  chariot  and  its  occupants  await  his 
pleasure  at  a  safe  distance.  He  abandons  his  bow  and  arrows 
to  his  eunuch  while  he  grasps  the  rampant  lion  by  the  throat 
and  drives  his  short  sword  straight  through  his  body  or  brains 
the  beast  with  his  mace.  Final  scene  in  this  group  is  the  liba¬ 
tion  over  the  dead  animals,  four  already  collected  at  the  mon¬ 
arch’s  feet,  a  fifth  in  the  act  of  being  carried  in  by  eunuchs. 
Again  in  evidence  are  the  musicians,  the  servants  with  fly- 
flappers,  and  the  soldiers. 

Whatever  his  dislike  of  the  stricken  field,  Ashur-bani-apal 
cannot  be  denied  credit  for  personal  courage,  if  we  admit  the 
testimony  of  the  sculptures,  and  it  is  significant  that  the  greater 


502 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


part  of  the  reliefs  is  devoted  to  struggles  with  the  king  of 
beasts.  Less  spectacular  methods  of  hunting  were  not  neg¬ 
lected.  Next  to  the  lion,  he  most  willingly  hm  ed  the  wild 
ass  of  the  desert.  Mounted  on  his  swiftest  A  o  steed,  he 
shot  down  the  asses  as  they  galloped  at  full  speed,  coursed 
by  dogs,  or  lassoed  by  the  hunters.  The  still  swifter  gazelles 
were  also  pursued;  to  reach  bow-shot  distance  of  them,  was 
necessary  for  the  king  and  his  lone  companion  to  hide  m  a 
shallow  pit.  Occasionally  he  descended  to  trapping,  and  a 
scene  presents  a  number  of  fallow  deer  rushing  blindly  into  the 
high-netted  enclosure;  one  is  already  caught  and  is  being 
untangled  by  the  huntsman,  another  hunter  is  strengthening 
the  ropes. 

Our  final  scene  is  the  banquet.  In  a  vine-clad  arbour  sur¬ 
rounded  by  date-palms,  Ashur-bani-apal  reclines  on  a  high- 
cushioned  couch  with  richly  carved  supports.  His  body  is 
half  covered  by  a  spread,  his  hair  is  crowned  with  a  chaplet 
of  flowers,  in  his  left  hand  he  grasps  a  huge  lily,  with  his  right 
he  is  lifting  to  his  lips  a  richly  chased  bowl  of  wine.  Ashur- 
sharrat,  his  queen,  sits  bolt  upright  on  a  high-backed  chair 
with  curving  arms,  richly  decorated  supports,  and  footstool. 
A  tiara  crowns  her  head,  her  short  hair  curls  on  her  shoulder, 
a  necklace  of  huge  stones  encircles  such  neck  as  is  possible 
between  solid  head  and  ample  body,  bracelets  adorn  her  chubby 
wrists.  A  rich  under  jacket  is  all  but  lost  under  the  long  fringed 
robe  which  is  swathed  about  her  body,  its  lowest  fold  coming 
down  to  the  jewelled  shoes,  its  last  thrown  carelessly  over  the 
arm  and  hanging  down  the  side.  Between  the  two  stands  a 
small  table,  supported  first  by  reversed  and  truncated  cones 
and  then  by  lions’  feet,  while  the  central  support  is  a  column 
with  three  Ionic  volutes  strung  along  it.  On  its  surface  is  food 
and  a  casket  of  ivory  such  as  has  been  preserved  in  the  original. 
By  the  side  of  each  is  a  censer  with  acorn-shaped  top,  and  be¬ 
hind  each  are  servants  with  fly-flappers.  Musicians  entertain 
the  royal  pair,  and  food  is  being  served  by  attendants,  who 
have  some  difficulty  in  keeping  off  the  flies.  Birds  and  grass¬ 
hoppers  furnish  a  pleasant  touch  of  nature,  until  we  catch  a 


Fig.  15S.  BANQUET  OF  ASHUR-BANI-APAL  AND  HIS  QUEEN,  ASHUR-SHARRAT. 

(Cast  in  Metropolitan  Museum.) 


A  ROYAL  SCHOLAR 


503 


glimpse  of  a  grasshopper  disappearing  down  a  bird’s  throat, 
and  until  we  observe  the  direction  of  the  king’s  glance,  for 
there  hangs  the  bleeding  head  of  Tep  Humban  from  the  branch 
with  the  less-ghastly  fruit. 

With  these  bas-reliefs,  Assyrian  art  reached  the  highest 
point  to  which  it  seemed  possible  to  aspire.  They  show  their 
superiority  to  those  which  had  gone  before  in  fineness  of  finish 
and  minuteness  of  detail.  If  the  innate  modesty  of  the  Orien¬ 
tal  prevented  the  artist  from  studying  the  nude  human  form 
of  the  athlete,  the  lack  was  made  good  in  the  case  of  wild  ani¬ 
mals,  for  the  frequent  royal  hunts  permitted  him  to  study  the 
hunted  animals  in  their  every  movement  of  life  or  in  their  dis¬ 
tortion  when  wounded  or  dead. 

Few  artists,  ancient  or  modern,  enjoyed  such  facilities  for 
studying  lions  in  the  life.  The  lions  of  the  greatest  artists  of 
history  are  generally  the  result  of  convention;  some  never 
saw  a  living  animal,  others  have  observed  them  only  in  cap¬ 
tivity.  Complaint  that  sculptured  lions  are  grotesque  is  a 
commonplace  of  present-day  art  criticism.  One  can  have  no 
doubt  that  they  were  copied  from  live  models  when  we  inspect 
the  productions  of  the  nameless  Assyrian  master. 

The  lion  with  fangs  set  in  the  chariot-wheel,  the  wounded 
lion  coughing  up  his  life-blood,  the  lioness  paralysed  by  the 
arrows  in  her  spine  yet  gamely  dragging  herself  along  on  her 
fore  paws,  the  wild  ass  glancing  back  over  his  shoulder  as  he 
rushes  at  full  speed,  the  stag  dashing  through  the  reeds  to  the 
safety  of  the  lake,  the  shy,  graceful  gazelles,  the  mastiffs  strain¬ 
ing  at  the  leash,  the  horses  in  terror  of  the  king  of  beasts,  we 
might  literally  pass  from  one  relief  to  the  next  in  regular  order 
when  we  enumerate  the  scenes  which  are  true  to  life.  In  the 
words  of  one  of  the  greatest  authorities  on  Greek  art,  “the 
magnificent  rendering  of  lions,  horses,  and  dogs  in  these  re¬ 
liefs  has  never  been  surpassed,  if  equalled,  in  any  sculpture 
ancient  or  modern.”  1 

1  Ernest  Gardner,  Handbook  of  Greek  Sculpture,  49.  The  reliefs,  Layard,  Mon¬ 
uments  of  Nineveh,  II;  cf.  for  descriptions  especially  Bonomi,  Nineveh  and  Its 
Palaces,  386  ff. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 


HEIRS  OF  THE  AGES 

In  Assyrian  culture  we  meet  for  the  first  time  in  history  a 
civilisation  whose  possessors  may  rightly  be  called  “  Heirs  of 
the  Ages.”  Not  that  the  earlier  civilisations  were  not  com¬ 
plex,  for  Egypt  and  Babylonia  were  inhabited  by  mingled 
races  with  individual  cultures,  and  each  admitted  influences 
from  the  other;  compared  with  Assyria,  their  culture  was  sim¬ 
plicity  itself. 

Current  practice  treats  Assyrian  civilisation  as  a  mere  ex¬ 
tension  of  the  Babylonian,  and  there  is  a  certain  justification 
for  this  view.  Yet,  even  if  we  thus  narrow  the  influences 
exerted  upon  the  Assyrians,  the  heritage  from  the  south  was 
far  from  simple,  for  the  Babylonian  culture  which  influenced 
the  historical  Assyrians  was  itself  a  complex  of  Shumerian  and 
Akkadian,  of  Amorite  and  Elamite  and  Kashshite,  strength¬ 
ened  and  vulgarised  in  the  later  centuries  by  the  invasion  of 
the  Aramaeans. 

Such  complexity  as  was  found  in  the  Babylonian  civilisation 
was  due  primarily  to  the  settlement  within  the  alluvium  of 
foreign  peoples.  This  was  in  part  true  of  Assyria.  To  judge 
from  the  place  names,  an  earlier  stratum  of  the  population 
was  of  that  race  which  had  overspread  all  western  Asia  in  Neo¬ 
lithic  times,  and  how  many  more  layers  of  peoples  had  pre¬ 
ceded  the  historical  Assyrians  it  is  not  easy  to  decide.  Before 
the  true  Assyrians  came  in,  Assyria  was  a  confused  medley  of 
Semites  and  non-Semites. 

The  true  Assyrians  were  Semites  and  close  to  the  desert; 
thus  they  brought  with  them,  almost  undiluted,  the  truly 
desert,  that  is,  Semitic  point  of  view.  Comparative  assimila¬ 
tion  of  the  various  elements  had  been  completed  by  the  time 
that  Assyria  became  a  world-power,  but  the  fusion  was  in  many 

respects  imperfect.  The  lower  classes  were  in  a  state  of  in- 

504 


HEIRS  OF  THE  AGES 


505 


feriority  amounting  to  serfdom,  and  the  different  dress  of  nobles 
and  commons,  as  we  see  them,  for  example,  in  the  gate  sculp¬ 
tures  of  Shalmaneser  III,  points  in  the  same  direction.  All 
now  spoke  the  Assyrian  language  and  appeared  to  have  left 
behind  their  peculiar,  non-Semitic  characteristics. 

It  w~as  not  from  these  lower  classes  that  the  complexity  of 
Assyrian  culture  was  to  develop.  A  period  of  Shumerian  con¬ 
trol  is  indicated  by  the  names  of  the  sanctuaries  and  by  early 
examples  of  art,  and  this  cultural  element  was  emphasised 
when  Ashur  fell  under  the  physical  control  of  the  Babylonia 
of  the  Ur  dynasty.  The  Amorite  dynasty  of  Babylon  was 
likewise  under  considerable  indebtedness  to  the  Shumerian 
civilisation,  but  in  race  they  were  close  to  the  Assyrians,  and 
their  lordship  over  Ashur  strengthened  the  Semitic  features. 

More  mature  consideration  indicates  that  the  unlikenesses 
between  the  two  civilisations  are  as  great  as  the  similarities. 
The  chief  cause,  it  will  soon  be  recognised,  is  the  fact  that 
while  the  culture  of  Babylonia  was  always  local  and  some¬ 
what  nationalistic,  that  of  the  Assyrians  was  almost  from  the 
beginning  imperial  in  that  it  rested  on  the  subjugation  and 
incorporation  of  peoples  of  different  languages,  races,  and 
cultures,  not  to  speak  of  a  difference  in  political  organisation 
far  greater  than  was  to  be  detected  between  the  city-states 
of  the  alluvium.  Thus  the  Assyrian  empire  rested  upon  a  far 
more  complex  grouping  of  peoples  than  had  ever  before  been 
seen.  A  glance  at  the  ancient  ethnographic  map  will  confirm 
this  to  the  fullest  satisfaction. 

Earlier  political  obedience,  close  similarity  of  language, 
common  deities  and  methods  of  worship,  a  general  likeness  in 
civilisation,  all  contributed  to  unite  Assyria  to  Babylonia  from 
an  early  period,  and  as  it  came  more  and  more  to  be  accepted 
as  matter  of  fact  that  Babylonia  should  be  a  political  depen¬ 
dency  of  Assyria,  the  cultural  bonds  became  ever  closer,  until 
there  was  no  little  danger  that  the  spontaneous  northern  civili¬ 
sation  might  be  ruined  by  the  effete  culture  of  the  south.  That 
this  was  not  entirely  accomplished,  that  Assyria  retained  some¬ 
thing  of  its  native  habits  in  living,  was  due  in  considerable 


506 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


degree  to  the  ever-close  contact  with  the  desert  tribes,  in  part 
to  relations  with  other  peoples  who  in  many  respects  were 
superior  to  the  men  of  the  alluvium. 

We  can  hardly  overestimate  the  part  played  by  the  Ara¬ 
maeans  in  the  development  of  Assyria.  As  early  as  the  four¬ 
teenth  century,  the  pressure  of  the  true  Arabs  had  forced  the 
Aramaeans  into  the  Assyrian  world.  They  first  collected  into 
little  city-states,  each  surrounded  by  villages  of  farmers,  but 
when  Ashur-nasir-apal  II  and  Shalmaneser  III  destroyed  their 
city-states,  the  inhabitants  abandoned  their  farms  as  easily  as 
they  had  taken  them  up  and  began  to  turn  their  attention  to  the 
trade  opportunities  presented  by  the  Assyrian  conquests,  and 
for  the  proper  exploitation  of  which  the  Assyrians  were  tem¬ 
peramentally  unfitted.  Gradually,  the  whole  internal  trade 
of  the  empire  fell  into  their  hands,  and  by  the  time  of  Sargon 
a  large  proportion  of  the  trader  names  is  Aramaic.  An  index 
of  the  rapidity  with  which  Aramaic  influence  increased  is  fur¬ 
nished  by  the  weights  employed  in  the  course  of  trade.  Under 
Tiglath  Pileser  III,  only  Assyrian  characters  were  used  to  give 
their  value,  Aramaic  appears  side  by  side  with  the  cuneiform 
under  Shalmaneser  Y,  after  Sennacherib  Assyrian  never  occurs 
and  its  place  is  taken  by  the  Aramaic  alone.  Cuneiform  was 
used  in  business  documents  to  the  end  of  the  empire,  but  Ara¬ 
maic  dockets  permitted  a  hasty  inspection. 

Rival  to  the  Aramaeans  were  the  Phoenicians,  yet  they  seem 
to  have  agreed  tacitly  upon  a  delimitation  of  territory.  The 
former  possessed  a  monopoly  of  the  land,  the  other  of  the  sea, 
and  not  all  the  might  of  the  empire  could  force  to  its  knees 
the  island  city  of  Tyre.  Accommodation  was  fortunately 
easy.  Assyrians  cared  little  for  trade,  Phoenicians  cared  even 
less  for  empty  liberty  when  a  reasonable  sum  might  secure 
for  them  the  external  trade  of  the  empire.  Rich  gifts  now  and 
then  passed  up  to  the  Assyrian  capital  or  met  the  monarch 
on  his  infrequent  trips  to  the  Mediterranean,  but  the  letter 
from  the  Assyrian  financial  agent  at  Arvad  or  the  treaty  with 
Baal  of  Tyre  indicates  the  degree  to  which  the  sea-borne  trade 
of  the  Syrian  coastland  had  become  a  Phoenician  monopoly. 


HEIRS  OF  THE  AGES 


507 


These  were  the  most  important  cultural  elements  within 
the  empire.  The  reader  naturally  expects  mention  of  another, 
the  Hebrew.  Within  the  Assyrian  period,  they  produced  noth¬ 
ing  new  in  material  development,  and  gave  little  or  nothing 
to  the  surrounding  peoples.  Now  and  then  they  illustrate 
certain  movements  for  which  we  have  less  evidence  elsewhere. 
On  the  other  hand,  this  was  the  period  in  which  the  Hebrew 
religious  thought  ceased  to  be  like  that  of  the  other  Semitic 
peoples  and  began  that  evolution  which  was  to  result  in  the 
later  Judaism,  in  Christianity,  and  in  Islam.  The  effect  of 
the  Assyrian  culture  on  the  Hebrews  in  this  formative  period 
is  one  of  the  most  important  questions  to  be  considered  by 
the  historian. 

Scarcely  less  to  demand  consideration  are  tne  peoples  across 
the  boundary.  Portions  of  their  territory  were  for  longer  or 
shorter  stretches  of  time  under  the  Assyrian  standards,  slaves 
and  captives  bearing  their  outlandish  names  and  speaking 
their  “women’s  languages”  were  included  in  the  Assyrian 
families  or  were  settled  on  the  abandoned  farms.  This  means 
of  introducing  fresh  blood  is  often  concealed  by  the  good  As¬ 
syrian  names  which  the  captives  or  their  descendants  assumed, 
but  sufficient  evidence  remains  to  indicate  how  large  was  the 
foreign  element  in  the  later  empire. 

Egypt  was  under  the  direct  Assyrian  rule  for  less  than  a 
generation,  but  Egyptian  influence  can  be  scarcely  measured 
by  this  brief  length  of  time.  All  relations  with  her  were  not 
hostile,  as  we  might  assume  from  the  annals.  Treaties  of  peace 
were  made  through  an  Egyptian  scribe,  the  most  picturesque 
of  the  Assyrian  war  recitals  was  prepared  by  a  historian  with 
an  Egyptian  father,  common  men  were  called  Musurai,  the 
“ Egyptian,”  Sennacherib  had  an  Egyptian  son-in-law  and 
introduced  from  the  Nile  valley  the  well-sweep  and  the  clear¬ 
story,  Egyptian  motives  appear  in  the  ivory  or  bronze  work, 
many  of  the  horses  in  the  royal  stables  came  from  Egypt  or 
Ethiopia.  These  are  definite  connections  with  Egypt;  the 
more  we  study  the  general  civilisation  of  Assyria,  the  more 
probable  seem  other  contributions  from  the  Nile. 


508 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Another  people  whose  influence  must  not  be  underestimated 
is  the  Haldian.  Their  specialty  was  hydraulic  works,  with 
metallurgy  a  close  second,  and  in  regard  to  each  their  influence 
on  Assyria  is  marked.  Haldian  nationals  appear  in  Assyrian 
contracts  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Sargon,  and  Haldia  is  often 
invoked  in  names  otherwise  good  Assyrian. 

In  architecture  we  have  frequent  references  to  the  “bit 
hilani  ,”  admittedly  “Hittite,”  but  we  have  seen  some  reason 
to  suspect  that  it  may  really  be  something  like  a  Greek  temple. 
Greek  wares  appear  within  the  limits  of  the  empire,  especially 
on  the  Philistine  plain,  the  Greeks  of  Cyprus  were  in  close 
touch  with  the  kings,  at  times  they  successfully  contended 
with  the  Phoenicians  for  the  foreign  trade  of  Assyria,  their 
metalwork  and  ceramics  show  pronounced  traces  of  Assyrian 
influences.  A  Greek  Ionian  adventurer  appeared  in  Philistia 
as  leader  of  the  anti- Assyrian  party. 

Early  warfare  brought  the  Assyrians  into  contact  with  the 
peoples  of  Asia  Minor,  a  small  part  of  the  peninsula  was  nearly 
always  Assyrian.  A  considerable  number  of  the  “Hittite” 
states  which  had  survived  the  fall  of  the  great  Hittite  empire 
still  retained  much  of  that  peculiar  culture  in  north  Syria 
and  northwest  Mesopotamia;  how  this  mixed  with  the  As¬ 
syrian  may  be  seen  in  the  remains  from  Carchemish.  Reports 
of  warlike  and  diplomatic  relations  with  the  more-distant  states 
of  Asia  Minor,  Phrygia  and  Lydia,  are  stressed  by  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  similarities  in  the  archaeological  finds. 

Mention  should  be  certainly  made  of  the  influence  of  the 
incoming  Iranians  on  the  northeast  border.  Many  of  their 
peoples  were  found  within  the  Assyrian  frontiers,  some  as  sub¬ 
jects,  others  as  slaves;  towards  the  end  they  became  valued 
allies,  worthy  of  intermarriage  with  the  royal  family.  Like 
the  Hebrews,  in  this  period  they  gave  little  to  international 
culture,  but  they  were  showing  themselves  admirable  students 
of  what  they  saw. 

Brief  though  this  survey  be,  it  should  suffice  to  refute  the 
suggestion  that  Assyrian  culture  was  the  immediate  and  un¬ 
changed  successor  of  the  Babylonian.  The  truth  is  that  it 


HEIRS  OF  THE  AGES 


509 


was  highly  complex  in  origin,  to  a  degree  greater  than  any¬ 
thing  previously  met  in  the  world’s  history.  To  the  peaceful 
interchange  of  commodities  in  trade,  of  new  processes  in  tech¬ 
nology  or  new  animals  and  plants  for  the  agriculturist,  there 
was  added  the  mingling  of  objects  taken  in  war  or  brought 
in  as  tribute,  until  the  palaces  of  the  Assyrian  capitals  became 
veritable  technological  museums.  Predatory  nobles  might 
scorn  the  lessons  to  be  learned,  there  were  many  artisans  at¬ 
tracted  to  the  centres  who  would  be  less  inclined  to  pass  them 
by.  The  one-sided  nature  of  our  sources  does  not  permit  us 
to  speak  with  equal  certainty  of  the  mingling  of  thought,  but 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  Hebrews  did  not  stand  alone  in  this 
respect.  While  the  court  borrowed  more  and  more  of  Baby¬ 
lonian  magic,  and  the  intellect  seemed  to  be  ever  more  Baby- 
lonianised,  great  circles  of  thought  outside  Nineveh  were  de¬ 
veloping  along  more  eclectic  lines. 

The  final  touch  was  given  by  the  system  of  deportation 
practised  by  the  government.  Political  effects  aside,  the  social 
consequences  were  far-reaching,  and  endured  long  after  the 
memory  of  the  Assyrians  had  become  legendary.  When  ruling 
class  and  commercial  leaders,  when  prophets  and  intellectuals 
were  violently  removed  to  what  seemed  the  opposite  ends  of 
the  earth,  nationalism  was  effectively  blotted  out,  and  with 
it  went  the  chief  support  of  a  narrowly  local  culture.  Old 
customs,  even  to  the  older  languages,  might  remain  in  the  ob¬ 
scure  instincts  of  the  silent  masses;  in  spite  of  themselves  the 
intelligent  classes  were  welded  into  one  international  society. 
It  was  the  revenge  of  history  that  other  languages,  Aramaic 
and  Arabic,  other  civilisations,  Persian,  Hellenistic,  Muslim, 
were  to  be  the  heirs  of  this  cosmopolitan  culture. 


CHAPTER  XL 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 

Agriculture  was  the  basal  Assyrian  industry.  As  with 
the  Romans,  there  was  always  a  certain  taint  associated  with 
business,  which,  as  a  consequence,  was  generally  abandoned 
to  foreigners;  agriculture  shared  with  war  and  administration 
the  roster  of  activities  fit  for  the  world  masters.  To  a  de¬ 
gree  quite  unusual  in  most  periods  of  history,  the  Assyrians 
recognised  the  vital  relation  which  exists  between  the  land 
and  civilisation,  the  need  of  food  and  of  other  agricultural 
products  for  the  successful  extension  of  empire,  the  importance 
of  a  reservoir  of  seasoned  farm  laborers  who  might  be  inducted 
into  the  army.  While,  therefore,  the  business  records  preserved 
in  the  royal  archives  are  of  a  highly  specialised  character  and 
whole  categories  of  business  activity  are  lacking,  agriculture 
is  well  represented. 

Behind  the  Assyrian,  and  not  far  behind,  was  his  nomad  life. 
How  deeply  he  was  influenced  by  this  phase  of  his  past  we  have 
had  repeated  opportunity  to  realise  from  his  detailed  history. 
His  earliest  settled  home  was  on  the  edge  of  the  steppe,  and 
ancestry  and  environment  alike  tended  to  make  much  of  his 
wealth  lie  in  his  flocks  and  herds.  At  his  doors  were  broad  ex¬ 
panses  of  grasslands  whose  lack  of  water  prohibited  a  regular 
agriculture  but  invited  grazing.  The  prairies  were  dotted  by 
his  big,  heavy-fleeced,  fat-tailed  sheep,  or  his  equally  large  and 
well-covered  goats,  who  were  guarded  by  half-savage  shepherds 
clad  in  sheepskins  against  the  blazing  sun  of  summer  when 
all  the  landscape  was  a  mist  of  finely  blowing  silt  or  against 
the  chilling  wind  of  winter  which  swept  the  level  expanses 
from  the  snow  mountains  of  the  not-far-distant  north.  They 
were  assisted  by  their  faithful  dogs,  half  mastiff  in  breed,  and 
scarcely  less  savage  than  their  masters,  who  did  not  hesitate, 
if  the  occasion  appeared  propitious,  to  murder  those  who  might 

510 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 


511 


testify  to  their  thefts.  From  these  flocks,  the  nobles  obtained 
their  rare  meat  meal,  mutton,  and  the  material  for  their  woollen 
clothes.  Each  of  the  high  officials  had  his  individual  flock; 
one  in  particular  belonged  to  Esarhaddon  while  crown  prince. 
Sheep  are  numerous  in  the  Harran  census,  with  as  many  as 
one  hundred  and  eighty-eight  to  one  shepherd,  but  goats  are 
rare. 

Ashur  was  not  all  rough  hill  or  arid  steppe.  Before  the  city 
lay  a  small  but  fertile  plain  which  was  continued  by  the  nar¬ 
row  bottomlands  along  each  side  of  the  Tigris.  The  agricul¬ 
turist  soon  moved  to  the  west,  to  the  fertile  stretch  of  country 
south  of  the  Singara  hills;  east  of  the  Tigris  the  rolling  Assyrian 
Triangle  afforded  a  more  diversified  cultivation,  Mesopotamia 
and  its  extension  in  north  Syria  furnished  broad  prairies  where 
great  estates  might  develop. 

Fortunately  for  Assyria,  its  land  system  was  not  modelled 
on  that  of  Egypt,  with  its  almost  total  absence  of  property 
held  in  freehold,  but  on  that  of  Babylonia.  Whether  the  Shu- 
merians  recognised  any  farm  land  which  was  not  controlled 
by  the  god,  either  through  his  vicegerent  on  earth,  the  patesi, 
or  through  the  temple,  is  not  clear,  but  with  the  first  appear¬ 
ance  of  a  Semitic  kingdom  we  find  freehold  in  full  use ;  Manish- 
tusu,  king  of  the  great  Sargonid  dynasty  as  he  was,  might  not 
challenge  the  right  of  the  common  people  to  their  lands  but 
must  pay  in  full  their  value  or  substitute  other  lands  in  ex¬ 
change. 

Much  the  same  feeling  is  found  in  Assyria,  and  the  later 
Sargon  could  secure  the  site  for  his  projected  city  only  by  these 
same  means,  purchase  or  exchange.  We  are  not  dealing  with 
the  subjects  of  an  all-embracing  state  who  have  no  personal 
rights  save  as  they  receive  them  from  an  all-powerful  sover¬ 
eign,  but  with  a  definite  farming  group  which  can  in  a  sense 
be  called  middle  class,  however  closely  it  may  have  been 
limited  to  the  members  of  the  ruling  race. 

There  was  indeed  a  theory,  still  common  in  the  Near  East, 
that  the  land  was  the  personal  property  of  the  monarch  and 
that  those  who  tilled  it  were  likewise  his  possession.  In  ac- 


512 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


tual  practice,  a  very  considerable  part  of  the  arable  land  con¬ 
sisted  of  crown  land,  “ king’s  estate.’ ’  Land  was  also  attached 
to  the  various  offices  in  the  imperial  administration;  for  in¬ 
stance,  the  Harran  census  shows  land  belonging  to  four  pro¬ 
vincial  governors,  to  the  commander-in-chief,  the  chief  judge, 
the  ner  of  the  land,  and  the  abarakkus  of  the  crown  prince 
and  of  the  Ashur  temple.  Such  estates  belonged  to  the  office 
and  not  to  the  individual  who  at  the  moment  happened  to 
hold  the  office  in  question. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  very  considerable  portion  of  the  land 
was  less  subject  to  the  state  than  is  ordinary  freehold  property 
to-day.  During  the  chaos  in  Babylonia  which  resulted  from 
the  coming  in  of  the  Kashshites,  there  had  developed  a  con¬ 
dition  which  can  only  be  called  feudal  in  the  narrower  sense 
of  the  word.  To  retain  the  support  of  the  great  chiefs  who 
accompanied  them  into  the  alluvium,  the  weak  Kashshite 
kings  granted  huge  tracts  of  land  and  fortified  those  grants 
with  immunities  from  taxation  and  from  public  service  which 
made  each  feudal  domain  almost  an  independent  state.  To 
protect  rights  often  taken  by  force  from  the  older  inhabitants 
and  always  subject  to  encroachment  when  a  given  monarch 
was  a  little  stronger  and  anxious  to  reassert  the  central  power, 
the  nobles  prepared  boundary  stones,  containing  the  texts  of 
the  charters  inscribed  upon  them,  and  under  the  symbols  of 
the  gods  who  were  invoked  in  the  elaborate  curses  which  ended 
the  document.  Their  primary  value  in  the  present  investiga¬ 
tion  is  in  the  long  lists  of  exemptions  that  show  the  dues  ordi¬ 
narily  inflicted  upon  the  land. 

The  charter  was  borrowed  by  the  Assyrians,  and  we  have 
a  considerable  number  dating  from  793  to  the  end  of  the  em¬ 
pire.  In  external  appearance  they  differ  from  those  of  Baby¬ 
lonia,  in  that  they  are  never  written  on  stones  nor  do  they 
contain  the  symbols  of  the  gods  under  whose  protection  the 
deed  is  placed.  Royal  self-praise  equally  begins  them,  and  the 
conclusion  with  its  appeal  to  the  gods  has  some  likeness  to  the 
much  more  elaborate  cursing  of  the  Babylonian  models. 

It  is  significant  that  the  first  Assyrian  imitations  of  the 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 


513 


Kashshite  charter  date  from  the  period  when  a  breakdown 
of  the  central  power  was  already  under  way.  The  closest  ap¬ 
proach  is  to  be  found  in  the  stele  of  Bel  Harran-bel-usur,  but 
his  demotion  at  the  hands  of  Tiglath  Pileser  III  showed  that 
the  style  was  not  to  be  repeated;1  the  best  known  is  the  one 
dealing  with  the  expropriation  by  Sargon  of  the  lands  which 
were  to  become  Dur  Sharrukin. 

More  typical  would  be  the  charter  granted  by  Ashur-bani- 
apal  to  Baltaia:  “The  fields,  gardens,  and  serfs,  which  he  has 
secured  under  my  protection,  and  has  made  his  own  estate, 
have  I  freed  and  written  down,  with  my  royal  seal  have  I  sealed 
it,  and  to  Baltaia  have  I  given  it.  As  to  those  fields  and  gar¬ 
dens,  no  grain  tax  shall  be  collected,  no  straw  tax  shall  be  re¬ 
quired,  seizure  of  herds  and  flocks  shall  not  be  made,  dues, 
corvee,  levy,  shall  not  be  made  on  those  fields.  From  dock 
and  ferry  tolls  it  shall  be  free,  no  hides  shall  be  given.”2 

Occasionally,  the  letters  afford  a  glimpse  of  the  operation. 
Amel  Nabu,  for  example,  reminds  the  king  that  he  has  said: 
“Come,  plant  a  harvest,  gather  for  thyself  fulness  and  in  my 
protection  enjoy  it.”  Let  a  king’s  messenger  come  and  view 
his  father’s  land  which  the  king  returned  to  him;  how  Mannu-ki 
Raman  has  made  it  to  go  to  ruin !  He  has  refused  to  give  the 
grain  and  straw,  he  even  asserts:  “For  thy  seed  there  is  no 
grain.”  Sharru-naid  wishes  to  rescue  his  paternal  estates  from 
the  chief  butler  who  has  seized  them;  he  has  been  to  the  “house 
of  the  records,”  but  only  the  king  or  the  crown  prince  has  au¬ 
thority  to  order  their  return.  Such  letters  illustrate  the  back 
flow  to  the  king  through  change  of  dynasty,  confiscation,  lapse 
of  time,  lack  of  issue,  or  usurpation  by  officials.3 

No  mention  is  made  of  tilled  land  in  central  or  southern 
Syria,  Asia  Minor,  Armenia,  or  Babylonia.  The  absence  of 
the  last  from  the  royal  archives  is  naturally  to  be  explained 
by  the  preservation  of  these  records  in  Babylonian  cities;  the 
other  territories  were  on  the  borders  where  the  Assyrian  land 
system  had  not  subverted  the  ones  in  local  use. 

Worthy  of  special  notice  is  the  large  amount  of  land  in  Meso- 

1  Cf.  pp.  168  ff.,  203.  2  J.  647.  3  H.  925;  152. 


514 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


potamia  with  its  Aramaic  population.  The  Harran  census 
confirms  what  we  observe  from  the  many  sanctions  in  the 
documents  by  the  Sin  of  Harran,  that  there  were  many  more 
fertile  fields  in  this  region  than  there  are  to-day.  In  addition 
to  Harran  itself,  we  hear  of  three  centres  which  had  possessed 
kings  in  the  days  of  Shalmaneser  III,  Sarugi,  the  Biblical  Serug, 
Balihi  on  the  river  of  that  name,  and  Til  Abni,  in  the  west 
Mesopotamian  steppe. 

A  whole  group  of  private  records  come  from  Kannu,  which 
some  have  thought  a  transplanted  Canaan,  since  Israelites  were 
settled  in  this  portion  of  Mesopotamia.  The  god  of  these 
settlers  is  Apil  Addi,  the  son  of  the  west  Semitic  Adad,  and 
not  Yahweh;  since  other  documents  in  the  group  assign  the 
penalty  for  breach  of  contract  to  Sin  of  Harran,  they  must 
belong  to  the  same  population  as  that  dealt  with  by  the  Har¬ 
ran  census. 

North  Syria  was  in  many  respects  the  continuation  of  the 
Mesopotamian  plain  and  here  too  we  have  the  evidence  for 
the  great  estates.  Once  grain  paid  for  in  Nineveh  is  to  follow 
the  standard  of  Iaudi  land,  that  north  Syrian  Judah  whose 
king  Azariah  was  once  confused  with  the  Biblical  Judaean.1 
A  whole  “city”  in  the  province  of  Arpad  is  sold,  and  it  was 
bounded  by  Neribi  or  Nerab,  from  which  has  come  an  impor¬ 
tant  Aramaic  stele.  Included  were  fifteen  hundred  fruit-trees, 
a  vegetable  garden,  and  six  souls. 

Lands  dedicated  to  the  service  of  religion  formed  the  most 
important  single  category.  They  never  ceased  to  grow  in 
amount  and  no  deduction  might  be  rightfully  made  from  them. 
Yet  the  temples  never  had  the  position  in  Assyria  that  they 
held  in  Babylonia,  for  Assyrian  kings  never  permitted  the 
priesthood  to  assume  too  much  power;  indeed,  our  fullest 
knowledge  of  the  grants  made  to  religious  houses  comes  from 
the  royal  annals. 

As  early  as  the  first  Shalmaneser,  the  king  is  found  restor¬ 
ing  the  cult  and  the  free-will  offerings,  increasing  the  slaugh¬ 
tered  sacrifices,  and  the  showbread  for  all  the  gods.  Otherwise 

1  Cf.  pp.  184  ff. 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 


515 


expressed,  this  means  the  possession  of  the  lands  to  furnish 
the  needful  supplies.  Tukulti  Urta  I  established  the  daily 
offerings  in  kind  for  his  new  city.  On  his  visit  to  Babylon, 
Shalmaneser  III  granted  sacrifices  and  free-will  offerings  in 
Esagila,  its  chief  temple.  When  Sargon  conquered  the  chiefs 
of  the  Uknu  region,  the  “ seizure”  of  the  cattle  and  sheep  went 
to  Bel  Marduk,  lord  of  Babylon,  and  to  his  son,  Nabu  of 
Borsippa.  Sennacherib  ordered  the  Hirimme  to  pay  their 
first-fruits  of  sheep,  wine,  and  dates  to  the  gods  of  Assyria 
eternally.1 

Property  held  by  the  temples  was,  as  a  rule,  freed  from  other 
burdens.  Manifestly,  its  occupants  were  able  to  make  an 
added  profit,  since  prices  would  be  set  by  those  lands  which 
paid  the  heaviest  taxes  and  still  remained  in  cultivation.  But 
while  the  economic  supremacy  of  the  temple  was  secured  by 
the  religious  fear  and  reverence  of  the  commons,  the  king  and 
his  officials  did  not  suffer  from  the  same  scruples.  Even  though 
there  was  not  felt  the  need  of  quite  so  elaborate  a  curse  as  was 
demanded  in  Babylonia,  every  charter  closes  with  the  words: 
“If  a  king  or  a  prince  shall  change  the  contents  of  this  docu¬ 
ments,  may  Ashur”  and  the  usual  list  of  gods  “curse  him.” 
The  royal  inscriptions  are  full  of  the  restorations  of  the  vari¬ 
ous  temple  dues  and  offerings,  but  they  are  eloquently  silent 
when  their  royal  authors  take  them  away.  No  man  appears 
more  religious  than  Sargon.  For  the  good  of  his  soul  he 
granted  an  estate  to  Sin  of  Harran;  it  is  only  through  his 
great-grandson  that  we  discover  how  he  revoked  the  grant  and 
great  suffering  was  brought  upon  his  people.2 

Nor  did  king  and  high  official  hesitate  to  extort  forced  loans 
from  these  ever- wealthy  subjects.  Ningal-iddina,  for  instance, 
“borrowed”  a  silver  vessel  of  fifteen  pounds  weight  from  the 
Nana  temple  in  Agade  when  there  was  sudden  need  of  money 
to  drive  back  a  threatened  Elamite  invasion.  When  Akkul- 
lanu  was  beginning  to  reorganise  Ashur  after  the  troubles 
incident  to  the  accession  of  Esarhaddon,  he  found  that  a  goodly 
proportion  of  the  most  important  provinces  had  neglected  to 

1  Cf.  pp.  122,  252,  288.  2  Cf .  pp.  289,  495. 


516 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


send  in  the  “ perpetual  ordinances  of  customary  dues”  be¬ 
longing  to  the  god  Ashur.1 

Our  first  reference  to  regular  taxes  comes  from  the  reign  of 
Tukulti  Urta  I,  who  inflicted  upon  the  conquered  peoples 
tribute  and  present.  With  Tiglath  Pileser  I,  we  have  tribute 
and  gift,  the  regular  terms  for  the  remainder  of  the  history; 
it  included  vessels  and  slaves,  flocks  and  herds,  and  was  to  be 
yearly  carried  to  the  city  of  Ashur  and  into  the  royal  presence. 
Ashur-nasir-apal  established  governors  and  vassalage  in  the 
conquered  lands,  service  and  forced  labour  he  laid  upon  them, 
and  overseers,  that  is,  subgovernors,  were  appointed  to  collect 
taxes.  As  equivalent  for  regular  taxes,  we  have  horses,  silver, 
gold,  grain,  and  straw.  What  is  meant  by  forced  labour  is 
shown  in  the  construction  of  his  city  of  Kalhu,  which  was  built, 
not  by  captive  slaves,  but  by  the  work  of  the  lower  classes  in 
the  countries  conquered.  Forced  labour  of  this  type  does  not 
appear  in  the  royal  annals  after  880,  and  there  is  no  mention 
of  it  in  the  detailed  tribute  list  of  Syria  furnished  by  Shalman¬ 
eser  III.2 

Thus  far  we  have  been  given  information  only  as  to  what 
was  enforced  upon  the  conquered  peoples.  That  the  Assyrians 
were  no  better  off  is  proved  by  the  passage  where  Tiglath  Pi¬ 
leser  III,  in  speaking  of  the  Median  tribes  settled  in  Syria, 
informs  us  that  the  dues  and  corvee  were  imposed  upon  them 
as  if  they  were  Assyrian,  and  by  a  similar  statement  of  Sargon 
as  to  tribute  and  tax.  We  actually  have  the  “Assyrian  corvee ” 
placed  upon  the  captives  settled  in  Hilaku  when  it  was  made 
a  province.  The  Uknu  chiefs  were  to  pay  a  yearly  gift,  silver 
and  five  per  cent  of  their  cattle  and  sheep;  this  appears  to  be 
identical  with  the  “seizure”  of  cattle  and  sheep  which  was  to 
go  to  Marduk  and  Nabu.3 

Various  agricultural  taxes — grain,  straw,  seizure  of  herds 
and  flocks,  dues,  corvee,  levy  or  palace  levy,  dock,  ferry,  ship, 
door,  gate  dues — are  briefly  listed  in  the  charters;  we  have  the 
impression  that  the  Assyrians  at  home  were  sufficiently  taxed. 
Added  details  come  from  the  business  records.  Since  we  are 
1  J.  930;  H.  43;  cf.  p.  343.  12  Cf.  pp.  66  ff.,  97.  3  Cf.  pp.  172,  252. 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 


517 


largely  dealing  with  lands  belonging  to  the  inner  circle  at  court, 
we  frequently  hear  of  estates  which  are  free,  “the  grain  tax 
he  shall  not  collect,  the  dues  shall  not  go  to  his  city,”  “it  is 
free,  without  straw  requisition.”  These  are  the  two  chief 
taxes,  the  former  on  that  which  can  be  plucked,  the  latter  on 
what  can  be  trodden  down.  The  two  taxes  did  not  go  together, 
for  in  one  example  a  tenth  of  the  property  came  under  the 
first  and  a  fourth  under  the  second.  In  case  the  lands  are  not 
free,  these  taxes  are  regularly  paid  according  to  those  imposed 
upon  the  nearby  city. 

Like  the  Romans,  the  Assyrians  realised  that  the  only  sound 
basis  for  taxation  is  a  census,  and  we  have  much  evidence  that 
the  rulers  made  a  careful  check  on  both  men  and  their  prod¬ 
ucts.  One  letter  shows  the  king  ordering  an  official  to  set  down 
in  writing  the  names  of  the  free-born  citizens,  doubtless  for 
the  purpose  of  exemption.  Ina-sharri-bel-allak  has  to  report 
that  he  went  out  from  Shabrishu  to  meet  the  men  and  the 
large  cattle  they  were  bringing  from  the  city  of  Guzana.  He 
was  fortunate  and  met  them,  he  made  them  take  shelter  and 
inspected  them  on  the  spot.  The  kalak  boatman  lacked  three 
souls,  the  gardener  three,  another  four,  a  total  of  fifteen  was 
lacking  according  to  his  tablet.  He  therefore  sent  one  of  the 
guardsmen  for  the  remainder.1 

Many  tablets  from  an  actual  census  taken  of  the  cultivators 
of  the  rich  lands  around  Harran  have  come  down  to  us.2  The 
tablets  are  in  sections,  each  of  which  deals  with  one  family 
group.  Usually  the  father  is  named,  so  that  it  would  appear 
that  the  holding  is  hereditary.  Then  follows  the  status  of  this 
head  of  the  family,  whether  irrigator,  husbandman,  vigniard, 
shepherd;  his  sons  are  listed  by  name,  his  daughters  are 
counted,  generally  there  is  but  one  wife.  The  number  of  slaves 
is  given  and  then  his  holdings  in  imers,  that  is,  the  amount  of 
soil  which  can  be  sown  with  an  ass  load  of  seed.  The  average 
holding  is  something  over  twenty  imers ,  with  an  extreme  range 
from  twelve  to  a  hundred.  Part  of  the  census  covers  a  town, 

lH.  900;  167. 

2  Johns,  Assyrian  Doomsday  Book. 


518 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


as  copper  and  iron  smiths  occur  who  possess  houses  but  no 
fields. 

Serfs  are  regularly  mentioned  by  name  in  the  sale  of  the 
lands  and  in  the  same  sentence  with  the  flocks  and  herds.  No 
special  word  is  used  to  distinguish  them  from  slaves,  though 
their  father’s  name  is  generally  added,  that  of  the  slave  almost 
never.  Elsewhere  they  are  called  mushkenu.  Like  the  serf  of 
mediaeval  Europe,  they  could  not  leave  the  land  or  change 
their  master,  but  they  could  and  often  did  buy  additional  land, 
stock,  or  equipment.  They  probably  paid  a  third  of  their 
income  to  their  master. 

Government’s  hand  lay  heavily  on  the  serf.  Aside  from  the 
payments  in  kind,  there  were  certain  specific  and  rather  onerous 
duties  to  perform.  The  military  basis  for  the  whole  organisa¬ 
tion  comes  out  most  clearly;  many  of  the  settlements  may  be 
compared  to  those  of  the  Homan  coloni.  A  town  of  the  Gam- 
bulu,  “ booty”  of  that  land,  “all  whom  I  settled  there,”  ap¬ 
pears  in  the  Harran  census,  and  a  considerable  percentage  of 
the  men  enumerated  are  still  “ empty,”  that  is,  unassigned 
to  lands.  We  have  also  individuals  from  the  fugitives  whom 
Nabu-ahe-shallim  brought.  Once,  when  the  Mannai  were 
hostile,  a  Mannai  town  was  settled.  The  Ituai,  originally  an 
Aramaean  tribe  south  of  Ashur,  after  their  conquest  were 
formed  into  a  fighting  unit.  Four  of  these  Ituai,  two  with 
Babylonian,  two  with  Assyrian  names,  sell  a  field  in  the  Gold¬ 
smith’s  City  in  744;  the  land  is  “ under  guard,”  that  is,  it  owes 
military  service.  Lushakin  has  a  perfectly  Assyrian  name, 
but  his  father  was  the  Egyptian  Absheshu,  and  the  land  he 
holds  must  have  been  assigned  him  when  he  was  taken  from 
Egypt  in  the  days  of  Esarhaddon. 

By  the  time  our  documents  become  available,  the  military 
unit  was  the  pair  made  up  of  the  bowman  and  the  shield-bearer. 
The  unit  of  land  for  those  to  whom  it  was  assigned  on  military 
tenure  was  the  “bow,”  for  which  a  military  unit  was  to  be 
furnished.  For  example,  the  Sute  tribe  settled  in  Til  Garimmu 
in  Asia  Minor  by  Sargon  were  not  merely  to  pay  the  dues  and 
the  corvee  as  the  natives  among  whom  they  were  settled,  they 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 


519 


were  to  be  “men  of  the  bow”  under  the  supervision  of  the 
provincial  governor.1 

A  peculiar  feature  of  this  military  service  seems  to  be  its 
almost  exclusively  agrarian  character.  Imperial  free  cities 
were  freed  from  all  military  service;  it  looks  as  if  the  Assyrian 
rulers  contemptuously  excluded  shopkeepers  as  unfit  for  the 
arduous  service  of  the  army.  The  force  thus  secured,  the 
“people,”  corresponded  somewhat  closely  to  the  fird  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  times.  The  process  was  entitled  “calling  out  the  fird,” 
or  “calling  out  the  land  fird.”  Slave  and  peasant  alike  bore 
the  obligation;  slave  sales  regularly  note  that  the  slave  has 
served  his  time  for  government. 

Serf  and  slave  must  in  addition  serve  the  state  in  an 
economic  way.  Peasants  must  work  the  crown  lands,  and  one 
of  the  most  serious  complaints  lodged  against  Shalmaneser  V 
by  Sargon  is  that  he  forced  the  citizens  of  the  free  city  of  Ashur 
to  labour  as  peasants.2  Canal  up-keep  was  through  the  corvee 
and  fell  upon  the  abutting  owners.  References  to  “task-work” 
fill  the  letters,  though  the  term  is  likewise  used  for  religious 
ceremonies.  In  the  provinces,  at  least,  it  seems  to  have  con¬ 
sisted  of  almost  anything  that  the  official  in  charge  might 
demand;  some  letters  inform  the  monarch  that  the  “task¬ 
work”  is  being  properly  carried  on,  others  indicate  the  reverse, 
and  the  labourers  themselves  declare  “the  task-work  is  heavy, 
heavy  upon  us.” 

Daughters  of  the  peasant's  family  and  female  slaves  were 
subject  likewise  to  a  service,  “king's  maidship.”  There  is 
reason  to  assume  that  this  time  was  spent  in  the  great  weav¬ 
ing  establishments,  for  one  group  of  documents  deals  with  the 
amount  of  wool  assigned  to  the  various  cities  for  working  up. 

As  a  rule,  the  serfs  must  have  been  extremely  poor,  not  far 
from  the  limits  of  subsistence.  Many  were  “empty”  men, 
without  even  a  plot  of  soil  to  cultivate,  dependent  on  the  need 
for  seasonal  labour  as  at  the  harvest.  A  distinct  tendency  to 
check  population  may  be  noted;  the  Harran  census  shows  small 
families,  the  largest  of  eight,  and  as  against  one  hundred  and 
1  Cf.  p.  225.  2  Cf.  p.  206. 


520 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


sixty-six  adults  in  the  entire  list  preserved,  there  are  but  one 
hundred  and  three  children.  Such  a  proportion  was  too  small 
even  to  keep  the  population  to  its  present  number. 

Constant  need  of  assistance  from  the  landlord  resulted  in 
a  system  something  like  our  working  of  the  farm  on  shares. 
Among  the  documents  in  the  royal  archives,  the  largest  single 
group  consists  of  the  so-called  “loans.”  The  first  party  to  the 
transaction  is  the  owner  of  the  estate,  who  advances  to  his 
tenant  silver  or  bronze,  that  is,  money,  or  grain,  oil,  wine,  or 
cattle.  In  general,  the  advance  is  made  until  after  the  harvest, 
or,  rather,  it  is  intended  to  finance  harvesting,  furnish  food 
for  the  day-labourers,  secure  animals  for  the  work. 

In  all  ages  and  throughout  all  countries,  not  excepting  our 
own,  the  greatest  problem  of  the  farmer  has  been  the  securing 
of  loans  for  his  seasonal  necessities  without  recourse  to  the 
usurer.  With  strangely  enlightened  self-interest,  the  Assyrian 
landlord  saved  his  tenant  from  this  fate.  Nor  was  this  action 
taken  to  enslave  the  peasant  to  himself,  for  he  went  so  far  that 
he  refused  to  accept  interest  at  all  if  the  loan  was  paid  at  ma¬ 
turity.  Only  the  negligent  and  slothful,  who  did  not  pay  when 
the  harvest  was  first  in,  were  charged  interest;  then  it  was 
generally  twenty-five  per  cent  for  money  loaned  and  fifty  for 
grain.  This  appears  most  oppressive  to  us,  but  it  was  simply 
the  ordinary  rate  of  interest  in  the  open  money  market,  and 
indeed  some  of  the  loans  expressly  state  that  if  it  is  not  repaid 
by  harvest  the  interest  shall  be  the  current  rate  in  Nineveh. 
In  the  case  of  the  grain,  at  least,  the  landlord  actually  lost 
money,  for  he  made  his  loan  when  grain  was  dear  and  received 
it  back  when  it  was  at  its  cheapest. 

“Den  of  lions”  as  hostile  contemporaries  called  Assyria, 
its  fall  worked  unmitigated  harm  to  the  poor  peasant.  Al¬ 
though  Babylonia  was  exceptionally  an  agricultural  country, 
the  “business  men”  of  the  alluvium  were  far  less  in  sympa¬ 
thetic  touch  with  the  peasant  than  the  Assyrian  nobles.  Blind 
to  the  fundamental  nature  of  agriculture  and  to  the  necessity 
of  a  prosperous  farmer  class  as  the  basis  of  a  state’s  prosperity, 
they  demanded  interest  on  all  loans,  and  the  usurer  ruled  the 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 


521 


peasantry.  The  serf  disappears  as  a  separate  class  in  the  late 
Babylonian  documents;  the  enslaved  farmer  might  recall  with 
regret  the  days  when  Assyrian  nobles  were  more  kind  than 
merchants. 

In  the  terminology  of  these  documents,  a  “  house  ”  means 
an  estate,  while  a  house  in  our  sense  of  the  word  is  a  “  built 
house.”  Beams  and  doors  are  given  special  mention  in  the 
sale  of  a  house;  in  Babylonia  the  door  did  not  go  with  the  house 
and  was  regularly  provided  by  the  lessee.  Connected  with 
the  “ house”  were  the  sheepfolds,  the  bath-house,  the  store¬ 
room,  the  upper  house,  the  breezy  upper  room  of  the  Bible 
and  of  modern  travel,  and  last,  but  still  worthy  of  mention, 
the  cemetery. 

Wells  are  frequently  referred  to  and  are  sometimes  sold  by 
themselves,  but  springs  are  never  found  in  the  region  devoted 
to  the  great  estates.  Something  like  half  the  land  of  the  Har- 
ran  census  was  under  irrigation.  The  larger  machines  were 
operated  by  two,  four,  six,  or  even  eight  oxen,  and  must  have 
been  much  like  those  in  use  in  Babylonia  to-day.  There  was 
also  a  hand-machine  with  pole  and  leather  buckets;  this  can 
only  be  the  Egyptian  shaduf,  or  well-sweep,  introduced  by 
Sennacherib  and  shown  in  his  sculptures.1  Distinction  was 
made  between  the  different  grades  of  land,  waste  land,  land 
cultivated  but  not  enclosed,  grain  land,  and  irrigated  land.  The 
two-crop  system  was  regularly  followed,  with  the  land  cultivated 
one  year  and  the  next  fallow  to  allow  the  return  of  fertility. 

Already  in  the  earliest  Babylonian  centuries,  the  plough  is 
known;  by  the  Assyrian  period,  it  had  become  large  and  com¬ 
plicated,  such  as  it  appears  in  the  tile-work  at  Dur  Sharrukin 
or  on  a  monument  of  Esarhaddon.  It  was  regularly  drawn 
by  one  or  more  oxen;  both  longhorns  and  shorthorns  were 
known,  but  each  had  the  hump  which  relates  them  to  the 
sacred  zebu  of  India.  While  in  Egypt  the  hoe  and  plough 
were  still  evidently  connected,  the  Assyrian  hoe  had  become 
rather  a  pick.  A  sickle  such  as  Ashur-nasir-apal  carries  was 
used  to  cut  the  grain,  the  straw  was  later  gathered  up,  the 

i  Cf.  p.  331. 


522 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


threshing  took  place  on  the  floor  just  outside  the  village. 
Animals  usually  trod  out  the  grain,  at  times  the  spiked  sled 
was  employed,  the  chaff  was  winnowed  away  by  throwing  it 
upward  into  the  breeze.  Then,  as  now,  barley  was  the  chief 
cereal,  so  much  so  that  it  was  called  “ grain”  for  short;  split 
wheat,  such  as  is  broken  up  to-day  for  starch,  was  more  valu¬ 
able;  at  the  top  of  the  list  stood  real  wheat.  Durra  was  com¬ 
mon  and  was  actually  found  in  a  tomb  at  Ashur.  Sesame  was 
the  usual  oil,  though  it  was  not  so  much  in  evidence  as  in  Baby¬ 
lonia;  the  olive  of  the  Assyrian  Triangle  might  not  be  of  first- 
class  quality — the  mountains  roundabout  were  well  adapted 
to  its  culture. 

These  great  estates  did  not  stand  alone,  their  relative  im¬ 
portance  is  somewhat  exaggerated  by  the  fact  that  what  we 
have  preserved  is  the  royal  archive.  References  to  gardens 
are  not  infrequent;  sometimes  they  are  sold  with  the  great 
estates,  sometimes  separately.  In  Babylonia,  the  typical 
garden  product  is  the  date;  while  the  fertilisation  of  the  date- 
palm  plays  a  large  part  on  the  palace  reliefs,  Assyria  was  too 
far  north  to  bring  the  fruit  to  ripening  and  the  vine  took  its 
place.  Nearly  all  the  gardens  in  the  Harran  census  are  planted 
with  the  vines,  whose  numbers  on  the  various  farms  range 
from  two  thousand  to  twenty-nine  thousand.  One  district 
has  a  total  of  two  hundred  and  eighty-two  thousand,  another 
forty-one  thousand. 

A  vegetable-garden  in  Nineveh  is  located  before  the  old 
bridge,  bordered  by  the  Royal  Road  and  the  river  and  by  the 
garden  belonging  to  the  god  Nergal.  The  fertile  strip  of  coun¬ 
try  south  of  the  Singara  range  and  watered  by  the  little  streams 
which  run  a  short  distance  into  the  prairie  is  to-day  dotted 
by  tiny  mounds  where  once  stood  a  collection  of  farm  dwellings. 
Two  documents  have  survived  to  testify  to  their  earlier  life. 
One  tells  of  a  garden  in  the  land  of  Singara  with  twenty-four 
hundred  fruit-trees;  in  the  other  a  garden  in  the  land  of  Sin¬ 
gara,  in  the  “  house  ”  of  the  goddess  Ishtar,  is  sold  with  a  thou¬ 
sand  fruit-trees,  two  imers  in  the  midst  have  terebinths,  six 
imers  of  low-lying  ground  are  in  grain,  there  is  a  garden  of 


THE  ASSYRIAN  MANOR 


523 


herbs,  and  all  the  boundaries  consist  of  other  gardens.  The 
largest  estate  of  this  sort  we  find  is  of  fifty  imers  with  ten  thou¬ 
sand  fruit-trees,  a  canal  of  standing  water,  and  with  it  goes 
a  serf  expert  in  the  use  of  the  watering-machine. 

Riparian  rights  were  of  the  utmost  importance.  In  gen¬ 
eral,  they  seem  to  have  been  exercised  by  cities,  for  one  land¬ 
lord  is  informed:  “ Water  from  below  his  city  he  shall  drink, 
yet  the  dues  shall  not  be  owed  to  his  city.”  Yet  a  letter  tells 
us  that  the  banks  of  a  river  of  water  belong  to  the  king,  they 
flow  only  for  himself,  they  are  not  free.1 

What  might  be  expected  in  these  gardens  is  shown  by  a 
tablet  which  gives  a  list  of  the  plants  grown  in  the  garden  of 
Merodach  Baladan.  Not  all  the  names  can  be  identified  and 
doubtless  some  of  the  plants  were  rarities  at  that  time,  as  was 
the  cotton  cultivated  by  Sennacherib.  Garlic  naturally  heads 
the  list,  for  it  has  always  contributed  largely  to  the  peculiar 
odor  of  an  oriental  city,  and  onions  and  the  shallot  are  a  close 
second.  Lettuce,  cress,  dill,  cardamon,  the  precious  saffron, 
hyssop,  coriander,  thyme,  assafoetida  furnish  the  typical 
oriental  garden.  Beets,  turnips,  radishes,  cucumbers  are 
familiar  to  us  of  to-day.  Alfalfa  is  a  great  surprise;  it  appears 
as  aspastu,  a  good  Iranian  word  meaning  “ horse  fodder,”  and 
shows  that  their  chief  food  on  the  Iranian  plateau  had  fol¬ 
lowed  the  horses  into  the  Fertile  Crescent.2  Licorice,  now 
exported  to  adulterate  American  tobacco,  chicory,  also  well 
known  as  an  adulterant,  poppies,  standing  for  the  idea  of  fruit¬ 
fulness  rather  than  for  sleep,  cummin  and  cassia,  these  are 
some  of  the  additional  plants  we  might  mention. 

Some  of  these  gardens  belong  to  small  owners,  and  freeholds 
of  a  purely  agricultural  character  seem  likewise  to  have  existed. 
These  last,  however,  can  be  traced  only  in  the  vicinity  of  cities 
which  have  been  granted  special  rights;  in  fact,  it  is  extremely 
doubtful  whether  any  but  citizens  of  an  imperial  free  city  pos¬ 
sessed  actual  freehold. 

1 H.  154. 

2  List,  Meissner,  ZA.}  VI,  291  ff.;  latest  discussion  of  plant  migration,  B.  Laufer, 
Sino-Iranica,  1919. 


524 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


As  the  Assyrian  empire  extended,  it  took  in  the  foot-hills 
of  the  mountains,  the  chains  to  the  east  along  the  present  Per¬ 
sian  border,  those  on  the  slopes  of  the  Armenian  barrier,  or 
the  fertile  western  hillsides  of  Syria  and  Palestine.  The  moun¬ 
tains  bred  a  hardy  race,  little  fitted  to  be  serfs,  while  the  nar¬ 
row  valleys  did  not  encourage  the  formation  of  extensive 
estates.  A  single  reference  in  the  documents  is  to  a  garden 
with  a  thousand  fruit-trees  and  a  stone  wall.  On  these  sunny 
slopes  flourished  the  vine,  such  as  furnished  the  drinks  for 
the  famous  wine-card  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  Syria  and  Palestine 
cultivated  the  fig,  and  above  all  the  olive;  so  much  so  that  the 
agriculture  of  those  lands  has  been  called  an  olive  culture. 

Even  in  the  hills  of  distant  Palestine,  the  advance  of  civilisa¬ 
tion  was  producing  its  inevitable  effect,  that  adding  field  to 
field  which  the  Hebrew  Amos  so  strongly  condemned.1  In  so 
far  aS  it  was  successful,  it  tended  to  break  down  the  sturdy 
population  of  the  country  and  to  send  them  to  the  city  slums. 
But  the  Assyrian  empire  never  was  urban  in  the  sense  that 
later  civilisations  have  become.  Assyria  always  provided  her 
own  food,  and  for  many  centuries  her  best  soldiers  came  from 
these  same  farms. 


1  Cf.  p.  170. 


CHAPTER  X LI 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 

“ Political  freedom  first  appears  with  the  Greek  city-state,” 
is  a  dictum  repeated  in  all  the  manuals  of  government.  The 
truth  is  that  in  many  respects  the  typical  Greek  city-state 
was  only  a  small  and  late  approximation  to  the  mighty  cities 
which  had  set  the  pace  in  the  preceding  centuries  in  the  mighty 
Assyrian  empire.  While  the  mass  of  the  Assyrians — natives, 
conquered  provincials,  or  deported  settlers — were  serfs  and 
suffered  all  the  disadvantages  of  serfdom,  the  cities  were  the 
centres  of  a  very  respectable  freedom  which  was  of  a  respect¬ 
able  antiquity. 

City-states  appear  in  the  earliest  Babylonian  history  and 
continue  to  be  the  units  of  organisation  to  the  end.  Ashur 
likewise  began  its  career  as  a  city-state,  and  this  form  of  gov¬ 
ernment  left  its  traces  throughout  the  whole  history  of  the 
imperial  organisation.  So  long  as  the  only  town  of  first-class 
importance  was  that  which  gave  its  name  to  the  state,  there 
was  no  need  of  special  privilege  to  the  city  as  such,  and  after 
more  than  one  city  had  been  conquered,  the  king-god  and 
his  deputy  on  earth  might  still  be  considered  as  separate  mon¬ 
arch  of  each.  With  closer  centralisation  and  co-ordination, 
the  cities  came  to  be  considered  separate  identities,  and  there 
arose  the  problem  of  handling  them  to  the  best  advantage  of 
the  state.  It  was  then  there  developed  that  distinction  be¬ 
tween  citizens  of  the  state  as  a  whole  and  the  citizens  of  one 
particular  municipality;  for  the  first  time  the  townsmen  began 
to  be  granted  charters  with  clearly  defined  special  privileges. 
From  the  local  nobility  was  chosen  a  council  of  elders  who 
possessed  very  wide  administrative  and  judicial  powers;  the 
merchants  under  a  chief  also  played  a  large  part  in  state  af¬ 
fairs. 


525 


526 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Imperial  free  cities  in  Assyria  represent  the  attempt  to  meet 
the  problem  of  handling  the  Babylonian  cities,  with  their  long 
histories,  their  local  jealousies,  their  high  cultures,  their  more 
developed  economic  life.  Such  cities  of  a  privileged  character 
are  first  referred  to  in  connection  with  the  expedition  of  Shal¬ 
maneser  III  to  Babylon,  which  is  called  by  the  king  the  “Bond 
of  Heaven  and  Earth,  the  Abode  of  Life.”  Sacrifices  and  free¬ 
will  offerings  are  assigned  its  temple  Esagila — that  is  nothing 
new — but  gifts  are  likewise  dedicated  to  the  men  of  Babylon 
and  Borsippa,  who  are  called  “men  of  privilege,”  “proteges 
of  the  great  gods.”  The  term  “privilege,”  in  its  different 
forms,  is  the  distinguishing  appellation  of  the  imperial  free 
city.1 

Tiglath  Pileser  III  equally  guarded  the  “privileges”  of 
Babylon  and  established  the  income  of  Esagila  and  Ezida, 
but  his  son  Shalmaneser  V  was  of  a  different  mind.  Sargon 
is  the  first  to  speak  of  similar  rights  in  Assyria,  but  he  implies 
that  they  had  long  been  recognised.  Although  it  was  a  city 
under  protection,  an  ancient  and  exalted  city,  which  Ashur 
had  made  famous  among  the  world  regions,  the  “Bond  of 
the  Lands,”  the  old  title  of  Babylon,  it  had  no  rival;  from  of 
old  its  citizens  had  known  neither  due  nor  corvee;  Shalman¬ 
eser  had  harshly  treated  Ashur  and  had  forced  its  citizens 
to  execute  the  corvee  as  if  they  had  been  peasants.  When 
Sargon  took  his  place,  he  extended  their  freedom  from  taxa¬ 
tion,  from  the  land  levy,  from  the  summons  of  the  recruiting 
officer,  from  quay  and  bridge  dues.  All  the  temples  of  the 
land  were  freed.  A  silver  tablet  was  inscribed  with  the  “privi¬ 
leges”  granted  to  the  city  and  placed  before  the  cult  image  of 
Ashur.  The  “freedom”  of  Ashur  and  Harran,  which  from  dis¬ 
tant  days  had  fallen  into  desuetude,  was  restored  and  the  neg¬ 
lected  “privileges”  were  collected  and  returned  to  their  places. 
Sargon  extended  his  protection  over  Harran  and  as  the  “man,” 
in  the  strictly  feudal  sense,  of  the  gods  Anu  and  Dagan,  wrote 
their  “freedom.”  2 

After  the  recovery  of  Babylonia,  Sargon  restored  the  fields 

1  Cf.  p.  122.  2  Cf.  p.  206. 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


527 


occupied  by  the  nomads  to  the  citizens  of  the  alluvium  cities, 
established  Ur,  Uruk,  Eridu,  Larsa,  Kissik,  and  Nimid  Laguda, 
returned  the  captive  gods,  renewed  their  “ autonomy/’  and 
restored  the  fixed  offerings  which  had  fallen  into  disuse.  He 
seems  to  have  divided  the  cities  into  classes.  For  Sippar,  Nip¬ 
pur,  Babylon,  and  Borsippa,  he  made  restoration,  to  the  “men 
of  privilege’ ’  he  made  good  their  losses,  established  their  posi¬ 
tion  as  “proteges,”  protected  their  weakness.  Der,  Ur,  Uruk, 
Eridu,  Larsa,  Kissik,  Zarilab,  Nimid  Laguda  were  given  back 
the  fields  taken  by  the  Sute,  their  disused  fixed  offerings  were 
restored,  their  “autonomy”  was  established,  they  were  freed 
from  dues,  their  men  were  reconciled.1 

What  this  “freedom”  consisted  in  best  appears  in  one  of 
the  building  inscriptions  of  Esarhaddon.  Citizens  of  Babylon 
are  “men  with  definite  duties,”  as  compared  with  serfs  whose 
duties  were  not  definitely  defined  and  so  were  liable  to  all. 
They  are  “men  under  protection”  and  “proteges”  of  the  gods 
Anu  and  Bel,  they  possess  “autonomy.”  Esarhaddon  re¬ 
stored  their  “privileges”  and  rewrote  the  “tablet  of  their 
freedom.”  The  economic  consequences  of  this  “freedom” 
are  especially  indicated.  To  the  four  winds,  that  is,  to  all  cor¬ 
ners  of  the  empire,  he  opened  their  trade  routes,  they  might 
carry  on  business  with  lands  of  every  speech.2 

Most  illuminating  is  the  letter  from  the  citizens  of  Babylon 
which  protests  the  murder  of  one  of  their  number  to  the  brother 
kings.  It  is  true  that  from  their  accession,  their  lords  have 
protected  their  chartered  rights,  and  have  guaranteed  pro¬ 
tection  to  all  the  foreigners  who  enter  to  till  their  fields.  Espe¬ 
cially  have  the  present  rulers  increased  their  chartered  rights 
so  that  even  the  women  of  Babylon  have  protection.3 

Best  proof  of  the  importance  of  these  imperial  free  cities 
is  the  effort  of  the  various  monarchs  to  conciliate  and  win 
over  their  inhabitants.  Grants  of  rights  to  Ashur  and  Har- 
ran,  pavement  of  a  new  street  in  Babylon  by  Sennacherib, 
the  rebuilding  of  Babylon  by  Esarhaddon,  many  a  case  where 
we  see  only  a  religious  dedication,  a  renewed  temple,  is  in 
1  Cf.  p.  256.  2  Cf.  p.  349.  3  H.  878;  cf.  p.  432. 


528 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


reality  a  concession  to  citizen  pride,  for  no  mediaeval  city 
looked  more  proudly  and  more  jealously  after  its  miracle-work¬ 
ing  shrine  or  its  cathedral  than  did  these  Babylonian  and  As¬ 
syrian  burghers. 

We  instinctively  seek  to  compare  these  free  cities  with  the 
city-states  of  Greece,  for  they  were  nearly  contemporary. 
Urban  economics  were  as  highly  developed  in  Babylonia  or 
in  Phoenicia  as  they  were  in  the  earlier  Greece.  Such  a  city 
would  be  at  least  as  populous  as  the  average  Greek  city  and 
its  trade  relations  far  more  complex.  The  Greek  city,  then, 
is  no  isolated  phenomenon;  it  must  be  considered  in  the  light 
of  its  environment  and  of  its  rivals. 

Nor  should  we  stress  the  matter  of  political  freedom  in  the 
comparison.  Babylon  had  slaves,  it  is  true,  but  not  all  the 
apologists  for  Greek  democracy  can  conceal  the  fact  that 
Athens  rested  largely  on  a  servile  foundation.  Serfs  tilled  the 
fields  around  the  urban  centres;  the  evidence  does  not  show 
their  lot  to  have  been  as  bad  as  that  of  the  serf  population  in 
some  portions  of  Greece.  If  the  Babylonian  term  mushkenu 
is  the  ancestor  of  the  French  mesquin,  the  word  helot  has  a 
still  uglier  meaning.  Democracy,  even  in  the  days  of  Cleon, 
gave  political  rights  to  barely  a  tenth  of  the  population  ac¬ 
tually  settled  in  Attica,  nor  did  this  political  liberty  much 
improve  the  economic  position  of  the  day-labourer;  the  ma¬ 
jority  of  Greek  states  had  in  every  century  much  the  same 
aristocratic  constitution  based  on  wealth  that  was  to  be  found 
in  the  merchant  cities  of  Babylon,  Nineveh,  or  Tyre.  The 
metic  was  no  new  fact  in  Greece;  in  Babylon  the  resident  alien 
was  admitted  by  special  charter  and  his  rights  were  carefully 
guarded.  Not  alone  the  fact  that  the  checker-board  system 
of  street  planning  was  usual  fifteen  hundred  years  before  it 
was  introduced  into  the  Piraeus  proves  Babylon  first  in  city 
development. 

Perhaps  the  comparison  is  not  entirely  to  the  point.  Baby¬ 
lon  and  Nineveh  and  Tyre  have  less  in  common  with  the  rather 
lawless  Greek  or  mediaeval  Italian  city-state;  closer  analogies 
will  be  found  with  the  more  sober  free  states  of  the  north,  them- 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


529 


selves  an  admitted  part  of  a  great  empire  which  claimed  uni¬ 
versal  dominion. 

A  surprisingly  large  amount  of  self-rule  for  the  cities  is  in¬ 
dicated  by  the  letters.  Often  the  governor  sent  from  Assyria 
turns  out  to  be  a  local  notable,  decorated  by  an  Assyrian  title. 
The  real  ruler  is  the  council  of  elders.  Often  they  write  in 
complaint  of  their  nominal  ruler,  and  their  complaint  is  always 
treated  with  respect;  not  infrequently  the  monarch  takes  their 
side  as  against  his  own  representative.  In  case  of  rebellion, 
appeal  is  made  to  the  citizens,  they  are  held  responsible  for 
the  escape  of  a  rebel,  they  remain  loyal  to  the  Assyrians  even 
after  their  Assyrian  governor  has  fallen  away.1 

A  striking  difference  between  the  free  town  of  antiquity 
and  the  modern  municipality  is  that  citizen  territory  did  not 
end  with  the  walls.  Legally  within  the  municipality  was  a 
large  amount  of  arable  land,  and  some  of  the  most  highly 
prized  rights  of  the  burghers  consisted  of  this  freedom  from 
the  ordinarv  land  taxes.  Thus  the  citizens  were  landholders, 
if  not  land-tillers,  as  well  as  traders  and  artisans. 

In  the  case  of  the  typical  Greek  city,  there  was  a  constant 
tendency  for  the  farming  population  to  move  to  the  urban 
centre,  and  soon  the  citizens  found  it  necessary  to  import  food 
from  abroad.  Thus  the  typical  Greek  state  was  ill  balanced, 
at  the  mercy  of  foes  who  controlled  the  sea,  and  the  food  prob¬ 
lem  often  furnished  the  chief  matter  for  dispute  in  local  politics. 
The  Assyrian  city  possessed  land  in  sufficient  quantity  to  make 
for  safety  in  war  and  balanced  development  in  peace;  those 
of  Babylonia  lay  under  the  constant  menace  of  the  Aramaeans. 
Assyrian  control  of  the  alluvium  was  intermittent,  and  when¬ 
ever  there  came  a  lapse,  the  nomads  had  the  habit  of  occupying 
citizen  fields.  The  annals  are  therefore  full  of  the  restoration 
of  fields  to  citizen  owners  whenever  Assyrian  control  was  as¬ 
sured.  It  need  hardly  be  added  that  the  generality  of  citizens 
were  pro- Assyrian,  the  Aramaeans  as  a  rule  in  opposition.2 

Alexander  the  Great  was  not  the  first  ruler  to  found  cities 
bearing  his  name.  The  first  Shalmaneser  wears  with  special 

1  Cf.  pp.  442,  445,  447,  455,  465.  2  Cf.  pp.  122,  175,  251. 


530 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


pride  the  title  “  Founder  of  Cities,”  and  every  ruler  of  im¬ 
portance  followed  in  his  footsteps.  Foundation  of  a  city  al¬ 
ready  in  existence  sometimes  had  no  special  significance,  as 
when  Til  Barsip  ceased  to  be  the  capital  of  the  independent 
state  of  Adini  and  as  “ Shalmaneser’s  Town”  became  the 
capital  of  the  same  territory,  formed  now  into  an  Assyrian 
province.1 

Foundations  among  the  barbarians  told  a  different  story. 
In  particular  the  provincial  capital  saw  a  much  more  complex 
life  than  the  mountaineers  had  realised  could  exist,  and  the 
demands  of  the  governors  for  something  more  of  the  comforts 
of  life  enjoyed  at  home  raised  the  ideals  of  the  local  magnates. 
Doubtless  the  mountaineers  were  far  less  happy  than  in  the 
days  of  wild  independence,  when  they  could  rob  and  kill  each 
other  according  to  all  the  rules  of  the  game,  but  however 
we  may  sympathise  at  heart  with  these  picturesque  bandits, 
reason  assures  us  that  it  was  much  better  that  they  should 
be  within  the  domain  of  the  Assyrian  peace. 

In  exchange  for  their  liberty,  they  now  suffered  taxation 
and  forced  labour;  they  also  had  improved  methods  of  agri¬ 
culture,  better  food,  even  for  the  poorest.  For  the  higher 
classes,  there  were  luxuries  and  the  introduction  of  better 
technical  methods  or  at  least  use  of  products  thus  manufac¬ 
tured.  The  wants  of  the  governor,  of  his  staff,  of  his  resident 
troops,  led  to  the  flocking  in  of  traders  who  in  turn  demanded 
the  service  of  natives  to  care  for  them  in  various  ways.  Thus 
there  rapidly  grew  up  towns  of  some  size,  and  more  than  one 
important  city  of  later  fame  began  its  civilised  career  in  just 
this  manner. 

Tarsus,  the  city  of  St.  Paul,  seems  actually  to  owe  its 
victory  over  its  predecessor  Mallus  to  its  foundation  by  Shal¬ 
maneser  III.  Nisibis,  for  years  the  rail-head  of  the  Baghdad 
Railroad,  prepared  for  its  refoundation  as  an  Antioch  and  for 
its  temple  of  the  Roman  Severus  as  a  chief  Assyrian  provin¬ 
cial  capital.  The  “Wall  of  Ashur-nasir-apal ”  and  the  “Watch 
of  Ashur”  at  the  narrows  of  the  Euphrates  paved  the  way 

*Cf.  p.  119. 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


531 


for  the  Palmyrene  outpost  which  immortalised  the  name  of 
Zenobia,  where  the  Arab  middle  ages  knew  the  magnificent 
fortresses  of  Halebieh  and  Zelebieh.1 

In  the  foundation  of  the  various  Alexandras,  Antiochs, 
Seleucias,  and  the  like,  we  are  told  that  Alexander  and  his 
successors  set  up  the  ideal  of  the  city  as  opposed  to  the  typical 
village  life  of  the  Orient.  Village  life  is  not  exactly  the  term 
we  should  employ  when  dealing  with  an  empire  containing 
such  cities  as  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  and  it  is  doubtful  if,  for 
example,  the  Antioch  in  Mygdonia  was  larger  than  its  prede¬ 
cessor  a  few  miles  away,  Nasibina.  Study  of  the  map  of  the 
provincial  organisation  with  its  dozens  of  provincial  capitals, 
the  casual  references  in  letter  and  business  document,  point 
to  an  urban  population  as  great  as  we  may  assume  for  the 
Hellenistic  period.  Seleucia,  we  may  be  sure,  had  little  to 
improve  on  its  predecessor  Babylon,  and  its  aristocratic  con¬ 
stitution  and  its  council  of  elders  find  their  analogy  more  closely 
in  Babylon  than  in  Athens. 

The  term  “ economically  free”  can  be  truly  applied  to  cities 
which  possessed  charters  such  as  we  have  studied,  and  indeed 
the  economic  life  of  the  empire  centred  in  her  free  cities.  As¬ 
syria  was  in  truth  no  “  nation  of  shopkeepers,”  and  her  ruling 

class  cared  as  little  for  “  business”  as  did  the  Roman.  It  is 

• 

not  entirely  an  accident  that  while  tablets  recording  business 
transactions  have  been  found  in  Babylonia,  literally  by  the 
hundreds  of  thousands,  Nineveh  has  furnished  less  than  a 
thousand  which  are  narrowly  devoted  to  business,  and,  at  that, 
half  are  concerned  with  agriculture.  Doubtless  the  few  private 
documents  hitherto  found  will  be  largely  increased,  especially 
when  the  material  from  Ashur  is  published,  but  we  can  predict 
that  the  difference  will  remain.  The  categories  of  business 
transactions  not  represented  by  a  single  example  from  the 
palace  archives  are  the  most  eloquent  witnesses  to  the  limita¬ 
tions  of  purely  Assyrian  economics. 

Little  though  the  Assyrians  were  interested  in  such  matters 
as  production,  trade,  commerce,  as  warriors  and  administrators 

1  Cf.  pp.  144,  SO,  93. 


532 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


they  could  not  ignore  them.  War  had  a  decidedly  economic 
basis;  successful  war  paid,  through  the  collection  of  tribute 
and  spoil,  especially  if  no  account  were  taken  of  the  lives  lost 
in  the  fighting.  In  the  same  way,  it  paid  to  administer  prov¬ 
inces  which  gave  a  large  portion  of  their  income  to  support 
the  palace.  We  should  not  be  oversevere  on  the  Assyrian  im¬ 
perialist,  for  his  rule  meant  peace,  and  the  provinces  within 
the  borders  of  the  empire  might  well  feel  that  complete  cessa¬ 
tion  of  war,  and  the  fact  that  there  was  but  one  distant  court 
to  support  was  compensation  for  taxes  and  loss  of  indepen¬ 
dence.  Patriots  might  talk  rebellion,  business  men  were 
warmly  pro- Assyrian. 

The  Assyrians  themselves  might  despise  trade  and  industry, 
there  were  others  within  the  empire  who  did  not.  Their  rulers 
might  think  of  the  empire  as  a  political  organism  only,  the 
subject  nations  soon  learned  to  conceive  of  it  as  an  economic 
unity,  to  realise  how  advantageous  it  was  to  live  within  a  single 
frontier  and  under  the  protection  of  its  armies.  All  the  routes 
traversed  by  Assyrian  armies  had  already  been  followed  by 
caravans,  and  when  they  were  protected  by  Assyrian  patrols, 
more  caravans  might  be  expected. 

Babylonian  merchants  had  long  since  ceased  to  be  content 
with  a  commerce  which  was  confined  to  the  alluvium,  and 
already  the  great  lawgiver  Hammurabi  had  made  special  pro¬ 
visions  for  the  case  where  the  capitalist  sent  his  agent  to  deal 
with  less-civilised  tribes,  where  robbery  was  in  most  matter- 
of-course  fashion  assumed  as  part  of  the  risk.  This  trading 
instinct  had  been  strongly  reinforced  by  the  Aramaeans,  who 
took  none  too  kindly  to  the  settled  life  of  the  village,  and  soon 
translated  their  desert  nomadism  into  the  scarcely  less-nomadic 
life  of  the  wandering  peddler.  By  the  end  of  our  period,  trade 
in  the  interior  had  largely  fallen  into  their  hands. 

Babylonians,  Assyrians,  Aramaeans,  none  of  these  cared  for 
the  sea.  While  there  was  no  little  river-borne  commerce  with¬ 
in  the  empire,  no  trading  fleets,  so  far  as  we  have  evidence, 
were  to  be  found  on  the  Persian  Gulf.  If  there  was  intercourse 
with  India  and  the  Far  East  at  this  early  date,  it  must  have 
been  overland  and  not  by  the  sea. 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


533 


With  the  Mediterranean,  the  case  was  different.  From  the 
earliest  recorded  history,  Egyptian  and  Cretan  ships  had  moved 
from  port  to  port  of  the  tideless  sea.  The  Old  Empire  in  Egypt 
already  knew  of  “Byblus  ships/'  so  called  from  the  earliest 
coast  city  in  Phoenicia,  and  when  these  maritime  states  de¬ 
clined,  somewhat  before  the  beginning  of  the  first  pre-Chris¬ 
tian  millennium,  the  Phoenicians  took  their  place.  By  the 
time  the  Assyrian  armies  brought  the  Syrian  seaboard  within 
the  Assyrian  sphere,  Phoenicia  had  secured  the  definite  con¬ 
trol  of  the  sea. 

The  Phoenicians  have  been  called  craven  because  they  regu¬ 
larly  paid  tribute  instead  of  fighting.  It  all  lies  in  the  point 
of  view.  An  accusation  of  cowardice  can  hardly  be  levelled 
at  the  sailors  who  explored  the  boundless  Atlantic  in  mere 
skiffs,  and  more  than  one  Assyrian  king  of  kings  could  testify 
that  the  merchant  princes  of  Tyre  could  put  up  a  sufficiently 
stout  resistance  when  they  deemed  it  necessary.  Such  armed 
refusals  were  intended  as  a  very  specific  warning  that  there 
was  a  definite  financial  limit  beyond  which  the  Phoenicians 
could  not  be  coerced  into  paying  more.  Each  time  the  lesson 
was  enforced  upon  a  new  monarch  and  successfully. 

A  case  in  point  is  the  treaty  with  Baal  of  Tyre.  Evidently 
Esarhaddon  had  attempted  to  increase  the  tribute,  for  in  the 
treaty  Assyria  expressly  renounces  any  increase  above  that 
paid  in  the  days  of  the  last  Shalmaneser,  and  that  meant  an 
actual  loss,  with  the  drop  in  the  purchasing  power  of  money. 
Never  did  the  Phoenician  look  upon  this  payment  as  “trib¬ 
ute" — it  was  payment  for  value  received,  and  in  not  a  few 
cases,  as  the  letter  from  the  financial  agent  at  Arvad  shows, 
the  clever  traders  gave  the  Assyrian  officials  decidedly  the 
little  end  of  the  bargain.1 

No  argument  would  have  been  needed  to  convert  the  busi¬ 
ness  men  of  the  ancient  Orient  to  the  mercantile  theory;  to 
them  the  basis  of  all  wealth  was  to  be  found  in  the  precious 
metals.  No  ore  deposits  existed  within  the  limits  of  the  orig¬ 
inal  Assyria,  still  less  did  they  in  Babylonia,  and  a  very  real 
motive  for  the  struggles  in  which  the  Assyrians  were  engaged 

1  Cf.  pp.  375,  417  f. 


534 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


was  the  securing  of  such  territory.  Possibly  a  little  gold  was 
found  in  the  edge  of  the  Armenian  mountains,  though  there  is 
no  proof  that  any  was  recovered  in  antiquity.  No  territory 
bearing  gold  on  a  large  scale  ever  passed  into  Assyrian  hands, 
and  the  nearest  they  came  was  in  the  brief  interval  they  pos¬ 
sessed  the  Nile  valley,  and  thus  the  key  to  the  upper  Nile 
gold-fields. 

Silver  was  another  matter.  Just  north  of  the  Cilician  Gates 
were  the  silver-mines  now  called  Bulghar  Maden,  the  “Bul¬ 
garian  Mines/7  Prehistoric  implements  in  the  most  beauti¬ 
fully  smoothed  of  greenstone  indicate  that  they  have  been 
worked  from  almost  unbelievably  early  times;  a  huge  Hittite 
inscription  where  once  the  valley  entrance  was  guarded  by 
a  high-set  fortress  shows  that  it  was  utilised  in  their  days; 
the  shipments  from  these  mines  made  the  glories  of  Mallus 
and  of  the  Aleian  plain  when  Homer  wrote,  and  when  their 
port  was  transferred  to  Tarsus,  the  ships  of  Tarshish  became 
famed  throughout  the  Mediterranean. 

Shalmaneser  III  secured  the  outlet  to  this  silver  production 
when  he  brought  Que  under  his  rule,  but  it  was  soon  lost. 
Tiglath  Pileser  III  recovered  it  and  penetrated  within  the 
Gates  to  the  mines.  With  varying  success,  Sargon,  Sennache¬ 
rib,  and  Esarhaddon  attempted  to  retain  this  wealth,  but  the 
invasions  of  fresh  tribes  from  the  north  ended  their  efforts.1 
Elsewhere  along  the  Armenian  rim,  silver  might  be  mined  but 
the  veins  were  small  and  the  returns  meagre. 

Copper  was  nearer  home.  Near  the  crest  of  the  Armenian 
barrier  range,  not  far  beyond  the  sacred  grottos  of  the  west 
Tigris,  were  those  mines  of  Arghana  Maden  which  were  so 
valuable  a  recourse  to  the  Germans  during  the  World  War. 
They  made  the  wealth  of  Alshe  and  Mitanni;  Shalmaneser  I 
founded  a  settlement  to  control  this  region,  and  thereafter 
every  strong  Assyrian  monarch  followed  his  example,  but 
rarely  with  more  than  temporary  success,  for  the  Haldians 
knew  their  value  quite  as  well  and  added  a  greater  mountain 
valour  to  a  higher  metallurgical  technic.  Less-important  cen- 

1  Cf.  pp.  144,  189,  225,  311,  363. 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


535 


tres  of  copper-mining  were  almost  without  exception  too  far 
within  the  Haldian  border  to  allow  even  raiding. 

After  the  stalemate  between  Sargon  and  Rusash,  the  As¬ 
syrians  turned  their  attention  to  a  second  great  source  of 
supply,  that  island  of  Cyprus  which  has  given  its  name  to 
the  metal  among  the  western  nations.  Sargon,  Esarhaddon, 
Ashur-bani-apal  claim  the  vassalage  of  the  chiefs  of  the  island, 
and  the  first  sent  them  his  carved  figure;  at  the  best,  he  was 
able  to  secure  a  limited  supply  of  the  coveted  copper  at  the 
price  of  trade  privileges  to  the  wide-awake  Greeks.  We  may 
note  the  nest  of  copper  implements  found  at  the  Gate  of  the 
Metal  Worker  in  Ashur.1 

Copper  in  its  simple  form  is  hard  and  intractable.  We  do 
not  know  when  or  where  this  was  remedied  by  the  use  of  a 
tenth  part  of  tin,  but  the  resulting  artificial  metal,  bronze, 
marked  a  great  advance  in  the  use  of  the  metals.  It  was  com¬ 
paratively  easy  to  work,  and  the  amount  of  metal  in  ordinary 
life  increased  apace.  It  was  first  being  utilised  on  a  large 
scale  when  Assyria  made  her  first  bid  for  empire,  and  the  bronze 
sword  of  Adad-nirari  I  is  one  of  our  earliest  examples.  The 
old  belief  that  the  tin  for  the  mixture  was  transported  by  the 
Phoenicians  from  the  Cassiterides  near  Britain  can  hardly  be 
accepted  when  we  realise  that  tin  is  found  along  a  band  run¬ 
ning  diagonally  from  northwest  to  southeast  through  Persia 
and  that  this  belt  was,  at  the  point  north  of  Lake  Urumia, 
within  striking  distance  of  Assyrian  armies. 

More  than  any  other  material  factor,  the  use  of  iron  by  the 
Assyrians  contributed  to  their  conquest  of  the  world.  Iron 
was  known,  we  can  hardly  say  used,  in  very  early  times  in 
Egypt,  and  the  same  seems  proved  true  by  the  business  docu¬ 
ments  of  the  Babylonians.  It  was  first  mined  on  a  large  scale 
by  the  peoples  of  Asia  Minor,  and  it  is  with  Hittite  ascendancy 
that  iron  begins  to  be  widely  distributed.  The  rise  of  Assyria 
coincided  with  the  development  of  the  new  metal,  and  the 
Assyrians  were  quick  to  see  the  advantage  offered  by  its  utilisa¬ 
tion  both  in  war  and  in  peace.  To  what  a  degree  the  Assyrians 

1  Cf.  pp.  226,  369. 


536 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


had  entered  the  iron  age,  the  finds  in  Sargon’s  palace  prove. 
Of  iron  alone  can  we  say  that  a  considerable  territory  belonged 
permanently  within  her  limits.  To  the  northeast  of  the  As¬ 
syrian  Triangle,  in  the  mountain  provinces  which  were  formed 
in  the  ninth  century,  are  numerous  sites  where  the  presence 
of  iron  has  been  detected.  However,  there  is  little  proof  that 
they  were  worked  to  any  degree,  and  it  remains  probable  that 
the  chief  source  of  iron  was  the  southern  shore  of  the  Black 
Sea. 

Other  metals  were  little  used  by  the  Assyrians.  Lead  ob¬ 
jects  occur  occasionally,  but  zinc  and  the  mineral  products 
more  prized  by  the  moderns — platinum,  antimony,  nickel, 
mercury,  manganese,  cobalt — were  little  regarded,  and  it  goes 
without  saying  that  the  importance  of  the  deposits  which  have 
turned  the  attention  of  present-day  business  men  to  the  re¬ 
gion,  coal  and  above  all  petroleum,  was  not  realised  in  antiq¬ 
uity.1 

Much  has  been  written,  and  truly  enough,  on  the  tre¬ 
mendous  change  which  takes  place  in  the  life  of  a  country 
when  it  transfers  from  the  regime  of  natural  commodities  to 
one  where  money  is  in  current  use.  As  applied  to  the  ancient 
Orient,  it  is  essential  fallacy  to  speak  of  a  regime  of  natural 
economy  because  the  economist  does  not  find  neatly  rounded 
and  milled  bits  of  the  precious  metals  like  the  coins  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  day.  The  moment,  for  instance,  that  the  gur  of  barley 
was  accepted  as  the  standard  of  value,  the  merchant  of  earliest 
Babylonia  could  reckon  in  such  terms  and  an  artificial  standard 
of  accounting  was  established  with  the  full  set  of  ensuing  con¬ 
sequences  which  produce  a  money  economy  as  distinct  from 
crude  barter.  This  transition  to  a  single  standard  was  the 
easier  because  in  early  times  barley  was  the  single  staple  crop  of 
Babylonia;  the  situation  was  exactly  paralleled  in  colonial 
Virginia  when  the  staple  crop  of  tobacco  became  legal  tender. 

By  the  side  of  the  barley  standard,  from  the  earliest  cen- 

1  Cf.  for  brief  discussion  and  complete  further  bibliography,  Geology  of  Mesopo¬ 
tamia  and  its  Borderlands ,  compiled  by  the  Geographical  Section  of  the  Naval 
Intelligence  Division,  Naval  Staff,  Admiralty. 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


537 


turies  the  precious  metals  and  especially  silver  were  used  in 
weights.  This  habit  in  all  probability  runs  back  into  Neolithic 
times  when  the  glittering  and  very  rare  metals  were  first  iso¬ 
lated.  Their  extreme  scarcity  made  the  precious  metals  a 
rather  poor  circulating  medium ;  as  in  Virginia  the  staple  crop 
formed  the  better  standard  for  accounting. 

Increased  contact  with  the  men  of  the  mountains  gradually 
increased  the  scanty  store  of  silver  in  the  alluvium  until  it 
was  possible  to  weigh  out  small  amounts  in  business  exchanges 
where  barley  would  have  been  too  clumsy.  Some  fifteen  hun¬ 
dred  years  before  the  supposed  invention  of  coined  money 
by  the  Lydians,  bits  of  refined  silver  were  stamped  with  the 
image  or  superscription  of  the  god  whose  temple  guaranteed 
their  fineness.  Some  were  in  the  form  of  bars  or  slivers  of 
metal,  the  ancestors  of  the  Greek  obeliskoi  or  spits,  in  turn 
the  ancestor  of  the  tiny  obol  the  Greek  buyer  carried  in  his 
mouth  to  market.  Others  were  round,  and  so  the  ancestors 
of  our  coins  of  to-day. 

These  coins  were  of  the  same  weights  as  had  been  dealt  from 
the  scale-pan,  and  the  chief  of  them,  the  shekel,  the  “ weight” 
par  excellence,  a  sixtieth  part  of  the  pound,  was  carried  over 
to  the  Greeks  as  the  siglos.  With  the  advance  of  these  coins 
to  the  west  went  the  weights  of  whose  system  they  were  a 
part.  It  is  impossible  here  to  cover  the  complicated  story  of 
how  the  Babylonian  weights  conquered  Greece  and  the  west; 
as  a  single  illustration  may  be  cited  the  evolution  by  which 
the  mina  became  the  Greek  mna  and  the  English  pound. 

Early  Assyrians  seem  to  have  used  lead  for  a  cheaper  money 
and  copper  is  mentioned  fairly  often  to  the  last  century.  As¬ 
syrian  contracts  frequently  substitute  for  a  given  weight  of 
silver  what  are  called  “Ishtar  heads.”  They  differ  from  the 
"Shamash  heads”  of  the  first  dynasty  of  Babylon  only  in  the 
name  of  the  deity  whose  face  or  symbol  appeared  on  the  coins; 
they  interest  us  more  because  in  name  they  are  the  prototype 
of  the  Persian  and  Greek  stater.  The  most  striking  testimony 
to  the  common  use  of  coined  money,  because  so  casual,  is  where 
Sennacherib  explains  a  new  process  of  casting  huge  figures  by 


538 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


saying  that  it  was  done  as  easily  as  if  he  were  casting  half¬ 
shekel  pieces.1 

We  should  expect  to  discover  examples  of  coined  money. 
A  treasure-trove  from  Ashur,  where  it  had  been  hidden  in  a 
jug,  is  what  we  have  been  expecting.  Pieces  of  silver  were 
cast  and  then  cut  roughly  into  bars,  rings,  and  the  like;  there 
have  also  been  found  moulds  for  the  precious  metals  in  the 
form  of  stars,  crescents,  and  various  animals.  None  of  these 
are  inscribed,  but  we  can  imagine  something  of  how  they  must 
have  looked  from  a  find  at  the  northern  Judah,  bars  of  silver 
with  the  inscription  in  Aramaic  “Bar  Rekub,  son  of  Pa- 
nammu.” 

The  most  rigidly  theoretical  economist  must  admit,  then, 
that  coined  money  was  in  existence,  and  that  the  money  regime 
was  in  full  progress.  Immature  as  compared  with  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  world  since  the  Industrial  Revolution,  perhaps 
even  as  compared  with  the  age  of  handicraft  which  preceded 
the  revolution,  it  is  still  a  phase,  if  an  early  phase,  in  the  evo¬ 
lution  of  the  money  system. 

The  nobility,  “men  of  birth/’  and  the  merchants  comprised 
a  middle  class  in  the  Babylonian  cities,  quite  in  the  European 
sense  of  the  word.  In  addition,  the  cities  included  a  consider¬ 
able  number  of  artisans  who  were  not  slaves  or  serfs,  and  yet 
not  members  of  the  nobility.  Very  little  is  known  of  their 
activities  in  Assyria,  but  it  would  appear  as  if  they  followed  a 
hereditary  trade;  they  passed  through  an  apprenticeship  in 
Babylonia;  it  is  possible  that  the  “Houses  of  Wisdom”  found 
in  the  various  cities  were  craft  guilds.  Certainly,  their  social 
status  was  not  low,  for  a  very  definite  respect  is  felt  towards 
them. 

However,  in  city  as  in  country,  the  basis  of  ancient  society 
was  the  unfree  man.  Corresponding  to  the  country  serf  was 
the  city  slave.  Perhaps  the  associations  implied  by  the  term 
“slave”  are  too  unpleasant,  for,  in  the  words  of  the  man  who 
best  knew  the  economic  life  of  Assyria,  he  “probably  had  more 
real  freedom  than  any  other  who  ever  bore  the  name  of  slave.”  2 
1  Cf.  p.  321.  2  Johns,  Deeds ,  III,  373. 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


539 


From  the  strict  legal  standpoint,  he  was  indeed  a  thing,  mere 
property,  as  have  been  all  slaves  in  all  ages,  but  he  was  also 
recognised  as  a  human  being. 

Domestic  slaves  were  comparatively  few  in  numbers.  In 
the  less  wealthy  families  they  were  almost  exclusively  women, 
engaged  in  domestic  manufacture,  such  as  weaving,  and  some¬ 
times  with  the  status  of  a  wife  of  an  inferior  grade.  This  situa¬ 
tion  is  reflected  in  the  price  of  the  female  slave,  which  is  regu¬ 
larly  as  high  as  the  male.  Only  the  few  great  houses  possessed 
any  large  number  of  male  slaves,  and  in  all  probability  they 
were  mostly  eunuchs.  The  largest  number  of  slaves  in  the 
possession  of  a  private  individual  is  thirty,  and  that  is  near 
the  end  of  the  empire. 

In  great  part,  the  slaves  were  married,  lived  in  their  own 
houses,  carried  on  their  own  business,  and  only  paid  their 
yearly  “ tribute77  to  their  master  according  to  the  fixed  cus¬ 
tom.  Nearly  all  the  industry  and  a  considerable  part  of  the 
business  carried  on  in  the  empire  was  in  their  hands.  They 
regularly  bought  and  sold  property  and  it  is  not  unusual  to 
find  one  slave  owning  another !  Aside  from  their  annual  tribute 
to  their  masters,  certainly  no  greater  than  the  average  Oriental 
of  the  lower  classes  pays  to  the  usurer  to-day,  their  only  dis¬ 
qualification  seems  to  have  been  their  inability  to  choose  their 
own  masters  and  the  necessity  of  remaining  more  or  less  closely 
under  that  master’s  oversight.  Thus  the  slave  was  merely  a 
source  of  assured  income  to  his  master,  and,  like  the  serf,  it 
was  rather  his  service  than  his  body  which  was  transferred. 

Such  slaves  lived  a  not  unhappy  life,  yet  now  and  then  the 
signs  of  slavery,  the  shorn  hair,  the  marked  ear  or  hand,  proved 
too  much  and  the  slave  became  a  fugitive,  or  pretended  to  be 
free.  Quite  different  was  the  fate  of  the  unfortunates  who 
had  been  enslaved  in  war  from  that  of  the  “ house  slave,”  or 
the  slave  by  purchase  or  debt.  Heavily  shackled  and  whipped 
on  by  the  overseer,  he  laboured  at  building  palace  platforms 
or  other  varieties  of  rude  work  until  he  perished. 

How  closely  the  position  of  the  slave  was  assimilated  to 
that  of  the  conquered  provincial  may  be  realised  when  we 


540 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


remember  that  the  word  for  his  rebellion  against  his  master 
is  the  same  as  the  refusal  to  pay  the  provincial  dues.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  he  formed  a  large  part  of  the  army  and 
that  the  various  officials,  especially  the  governor  of  the  province 
or  the  mayor  of  the  city,  were  able  to  demand  his  service  for 
the  army  or  the  corvee. 

Family  groups  form  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  slave 
sales,  and  it  has  even  been  suggested  that  the  slave  was  never 
sold  without  his  family.  *  Sometimes,  no  doubt,  slaves  were 
recruited  from  captives  taken  in  war,  though  this  does  not  of 
necessity  follow  from  the  possession  of  a  foreign  name;  the 
slave  might  have  been  acquired  in  the  ordinary  course  of  com¬ 
merce.  Nor  does  the  fact  that  half  the  slaves  bear  Assyrian 
names  prove  that  each  represents  the  case  of  a  free  person 
who  has  lost  his  liberty  for  debt,  though  such  instances  are 
not  unknown;  in  many  cases,  the  father  has  a  foreign  name, 
which  shows  that  the  dependents  had  changed  to  those  com¬ 
mon  among  their  masters. 

A  large  portion  of  the  increase  must  have  come  from  the 
births  in  slave  families,  as  we  discover  from  the  number  of 
children  sold.  Where  we  find  a  master  buying  a  slave  as  wife 
for  his  slave,  we  may  be  sure  it  was  desire  for  increase  of  a 
profitable  property  and  not  sentiment  which  urged  him  to  the 
purchase.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  a  considerable  number 
of  cases  where  girls  are  bought  by  parents  as  the  cheapest 
and  most  satisfactory  method  of  providing  wives  for  their 
sons.  We  have  a  fair  amount  of  evidence  for  manumission. 
Doubtless  the  slave  might  buy  his  freedom  from  the  profits 
of  his  business,  he  might  be  redeemed  by  his  clan  or  by  a  supe¬ 
rior  officer  if  he  had  been  sold  for  debt  or  had  been  enslaved 
for  crime,  he  might  be  adopted  by  his  master,  the  slave  woman 
and  her  children  were  free  if  her  master  married  her.  In  the 
slave  sales,  there  is  always  recognised  danger  that  the  seller 
might  later  declare  that  he  had  manumitted  the  slave. 

Such  slaves  as  we  meet  in  our  documents  were  generally 
bought  for  the  use  of  the  palace  and  from  private  individuals, 
a  few  at  a  time.  The  greater  number  were  secured  by  two 


THE  IMPERIAL  FREE  CITY 


541 


men  who  held  the  title  of  “ rein-holder/’  a  sort  of  “ director 
of  domestics.”  Beginning  with  710,  Shuma-ilani  has  a  career 
of  over  fifty  years,  in  which  he  buys  fifty-four  slaves  as  well 
as  makes  loans.  As  he  grew  old,  he  was  assisted  by  Rimani 
Adad,  who  begins  his  career  in  676  and  five  years  later  was 
“ great  royal  rein-holder.”  In  the  next  sixteen  years,  no  less 
than  seventy  slaves  passed  through  his  hands.1 

1  Johns,  Deeds,  III,  83  ff. 


CHAPTER  X  L  1 1 


BUSINESS  ARCHIVES 

Assyrian  business  life  is  known  to  a  much  less  degree  than 
in  the  case  of  Babylonia.  Private  documents  are  almost  en¬ 
tirely  lacking  and  the  court  archives  contain  but  few  cate¬ 
gories.  Considering  the  Assyrian  character,  this  is  not  sur¬ 
prising,  but  it  does  blur  the  picture  and  we  cannot  always  be 
sure  that  we  may  fill  up  the  details  from  Babylonia. 

The  typical  Assyrian  business  document  falls  into  three 
sections,  the  introduction,  the  business  transacted,  the  at¬ 
testation  and  date.  In  the  first,  we  have  mention  of  the  seal 
of  the  party,  seller,  borrower,  or  the  like,  against  whom  the 
document  furnished  protection.  Thereafter  followed  a  blank 
space  in  which  was  affixed  the  seal.  The  old-style  cylinder 
was  still  in  use,  but  the  newer  seal  stamp  was  already  coming 
in.  Some  borrowers  were  too  poor  to  afford  the  elaborately 
carved  seal  in  semiprecious  stone;  in  such  cases  we  read  “ In¬ 
stead  of  his  seal,  he  has  affixed  his  thumb-mark,”  for  the  dis¬ 
covery  that  lines  of  the  thumb  are  never  the  same  for  any  two 
individuals  was  not  first  made  in  a  modern  detective  agency. 
The  third  section  gives  a  long  list  of  witnesses,  each  preceded 
by  the  word  “ before,”  and  the  various  titles  here  collected 
have  already  been  utilised  in  the  study  of  the  Assyrian  ad¬ 
ministrative  system.  The  name  of  the  scribe  regularly  ap¬ 
pears  in  this  section,  and  sometimes  he  is  said  to  be  the  holder 
of  the  original  tablet,  in  which  case  we  have  only  the  duplicate 
without  the  seal.  All  documents  are  exactly  dated  by  day, 
month,  and  year,  the  eponymy  of  the  official  from  whom  it 
was  named.1 

In  our  classification  of  these  documents,  we  should  follow 

1  The  whole  of  the  Nineveh  archives  in  C.  H.  W.  Johns,  Assyrian  Deeds  and 
Documents,  1898  ff.;  with  elaborate  commentary  and  partial  translation;  the  busi¬ 
ness  documents  only  are  transliterated  and  translated,  with  brief  presentation 
of  the  legal  facts,  Kohler-Ungnad,  Rechtsurkunden,  1913. 

542 


BUSINESS  ARCHIVES 


543 


the  Assyrian  logic  and  not  our  own.  We  shall  therefore  begin 
with  the  simplest  form,  which  runs  as  follows:  “ Sixteen  shekels 
of  silver,  the  property  of  Kisir  Ashur,  for  the  use  of  Abdi 
Shamshi.  For  return  he  has  taken  it.  On  the  1st  of  July  he 
shall  return  the  silver.  If  he  does  not  return  it,  it  shall  in¬ 
crease  by  a  quarter.  April  11,  year  Bel-ludari  was  eponym. 
Before  Girittu,  before  Nargi,  before  Ardi  Banitu.”1 

This  is  simply  the  record  of  an  advance  of  funds  to  a  tenant 
to  carry  him  over  the  harvest,  which  would  be  certainly  ended 
by  the  1st  of  July;  it  is  of  the  utmost  significance  that  the 
typical  form  of  business  document  is  connected  with  agri¬ 
culture.  The  next  development,  again  following  the  Assyrian 
logic,  is  the  following:  “Two  pounds  of  silver,  the  principal, 
according  to  the  pound  of  Carchemish,  belonging  to  Addati, 
the  ‘  governess/  for  the  use  of  .  .  .  ia,  the  deputy  of  the  chief 
of  the  city.”  Thus  far,  the  first  type  has  been  followed.  Now 
comes  a  paragraph  which  according  to  our  sense  of  order  would 
belong  to  quite  a  different  category:  “Instead  of  the  two 
pounds,  he  has  placed  an  estate  of  twelve  imers,  a  field  in  the 
desert  of  the  city  of  Ashur,  (with  the  serfs)  Qurdi  Adad,  his 
wife,  and  his  three  sons,  Kandilanu  and  his  wife,  in  all  seven 
souls  and  twelve  imers,  as  pledge  for  the  use  of  Addati.  On 
the  day  he  gives  the  silver,  he  shall  bring  back  the  people  and 
the  field.”  2 

What  we  have  here  is  a  true  loan,  with  the  fields  and  slaves 
as  security,  to  be  returned  when  the  loan  is  paid;  meanwhile, 
the  lender  has  the  use  of  the  field  and  of  the  accompanying 
serfs  to  repay  her  for  the  interest  lost.  Exactly  the  same  loan 
form  is  also  used  for  leases,  terminable  at  will. 

First  developed  for  agricultural  purposes,  it  was  carried  over 
into  other  business  forms.  Thus  we  have  it  used  where  six 
workmen  secure  an  advance  of  bronze,  grain,  and  drink,  and 
are  in  return  to  repair  a  ruined  house,  make  firm  the  beams, 
fix  the  woodwork,  set  up  the  roof;  if  the  brickwork  and  the 
fastening  are  not  complete  by  the  end  of  October,  they  are 
to  continue  until  they  finish.  More  deplorable  is  the  case  of 

2  J.  58. 


1 J .  1. 


544 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Ishdi  Ashur  who  must  give  his  daughter  Ahat-abisha  to  Zabdi 
in  lieu  of  interest  on  thirty  shekels  of  silver,  so  that  the  girl 
is  considered  sold,  and  must  still  manage  to  repay  the  prin¬ 
cipal.1 

Again  following  the  Assyrian  way  of  thinking,  we  must 
make  a  totally  separate  class  of  the  advances  of  barley.  While 
the  tablets  we  have  been  previously  considering  are  written 
the  long  direction  and  with  clay  covers  containing  a  duplicate, 
the  barley  loans  are  on  heart-shaped  tablets  through  which 
has  been  run  a  string.  The  greater  part  deal  with  the  activity 
of  one  man,  the  royal  steward  Bahianu,  who  makes  these  loans 
to  the  peasants  on  the  royal  estates.  As  illustration  of  his 
activities,  we  may  quote:  “Two  ass  loads  of  barley  to  Nabu- 
nur-nammir,  one  to  Latubashani-ili,  one  to  Sabtanu,  belong¬ 
ing  to  Bahianu,  for  their  use,  for  return  they  have  taken  it.” 
The  next  month  we  read:  “One  ass  load  from  Sabtanu,  one 
ditto  from  Latubashani-ili,  in  all  two  ditto  barley  they  have 
paid  in  full  to  Bahianu;  Nabu-nur-nammir  has  not  paid.” 
We  may  be  sure  he  paid  later  and  with  penalty.2 

The  abode  of  Bahianu  was  in  Maganisi,  in  the  midst  of  the 
great  grain-fields  of  central  Mesopotamia,  and  that  his  rela¬ 
tions  were  mostly  with  Aramaic-speaking  individuals  is  shown 
by  the  relatively  large  number  of  tablets  which  have  Aramaic 
indorsements  on  them.  One  is  entirely  in  Aramaic:  “Barley 
of  the  king’s  son  to  Nabu-eribani  from  (the  city)  Airan,  five 
(homers)  for  seven  (months)  and  five  reapers.  Eponymy  of 
Sharru-nuri  (674).”  Another  says  merely:  “To  Menahem.” 
Menahem  is  a  purely  Hebrew  name  and  just  here  the  Israelites 
were  settled.3 

After  a  service  of  at  least  forty  years,  Bahianu  died  in  full 
prosperity,  but  his  heirs  did  not  share  it.  His  property,  which 
included  three  pounds  of  gold,  two  talents  of  silver,  five  mules, 
and  ten  camels,  was  plundered.4 

A  third  type  of  business  document,  the  record  of  sales,  was 

1  J.  90;  86.  2  J.  134  f. 

3  Johns,  Deeds ,  III,  226;  J.  245;  cf.  J.  H.  Stevenson,  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
Contracts  with  Aramaic  Reference  Notes,  1902. 

4  Johns,  Deeds,  III,  217  ff. 


BUSINESS  ARCHIVES 


54  5 


differentiated  by  being  placed  on  a  long  narrow  tablet. 
Whether  of  slaves  or  of  lands,  the  general  formulas  were  about 
the  same,  and  the  following  may  be  taken  as  sample:  “Seal 
of  Mushezib  Marduk,  governor  of  the  horses  of  the  New  Palace, 
lord  of  the  person  transferred,  Ahushina,  a  weaver  of  embroi¬ 
dered  cloth,  the  slave  of  Mushezib  Marduk,  has  Rimani  Adad, 
the  rein-holder  of  the  king,  from  Mushezib  Marduk  for  one 
and  a  half  royal  pounds  bought  and  taken.  The  silver  is  com¬ 
plete  and  given,  that  person  is  bought  and  received.  Return, 
suit,  complaint,  shall  not  be.  Whoever  in  future  shall  rise 
up,  shall  act  contrary  to  law,  whether  Mushezib  Marduk  or 
his  sons  or  his  brothers  or  his  brother’s  sons,  or  shall  institute 
suit  or  complaint  against  Rimani  Adad  or  his  sons  or  his  son’s 
sons,  five  pounds  of  pure  silver  and  one  of  fine  gold  shall  he 
place  in  the  lap  of  the  god  who  inhabits  Nineveh.  In  his  suit 
he  shall  plead  and  shall  not  recover.  The  silver  tenfold  to  its 
owners  shall  he  return.  (Recourse  for)  seizure  by  epilepsy 
(shall  be  permitted)  within  a  hundred  days,  a  defect  for  all 
time.”  1 

By  the  first  clause,  title  was  transferred;  then  followed  the 
seal.  In  addition  to  the  danger  from  the  heirs  of  the  seller, 
there  was  also  the  possibility  that  various  officers,  especially 
the  governor  of  the  district  or  the  mayor  of  the  town,  might 
demand  further  service,  and  on  the  seller  was  specifically  im¬ 
posed  the  duty  of  seeing  that  the  buyer  was  not  held  respon¬ 
sible.  Even  Shaditu,  daughter  of  Sennacherib,  was  not  safe 
from  this  danger  of  reclamation  by  reason  of  her  royal  rank.2 

Oath  by  the  gods,  so  common  in  early  Babylonia,  survived 
in  Assyria  only  in  the  royal  charters  and  then  they  were  merely 
guarantors.  Instead,  we  learn  that  Shamash,  or  perhaps  Ashur 
or  Bel  or  Marduk,  is  “lord,”  that  is,  advocate,  “of  his  case.” 
Heavy  penalties,  so  great  as  to  be  prohibitive,  are  to  be  paid 
to  the  various  deities,  who  are  carefully  defined  as  to  place, 
to  Ashur  and  his  Lady  who  live  in  Esharra,  to  the  Lady  of 
Nineveh  or  Ishtar  the  Assyrian  who  dwells  in  Emashmash, 
to  Ishtar  of  Arbela,  to  the  Lady  of  the  Waste  Places,  who  may 

2  J.  441;  5G0;  582;  804. 


1  J.  172. 


546 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


be  Ashratu,  to  Sin  of  Harran  or  the  lesser  Sin  of  Dur  Sharrukin, 
to  the  Adad  of  Dur  Bel,  of  Kakzu,  of  Anat  on  the  Euphrates. 

Such  a  list  of  gods  cannot  be  accidental.  Ashur  and  the 
various  Ishtars  are  thoroughly  Assyrian,  Adad  and  Sin  are 
west  Semitic.  Babylonian  deities  !are  conspicuously  absent. 
One  curious  penalty  was  the  dedication  of  white  horses,  pre¬ 
sumably  for  the  divine  chariot,  at  the  feet  of  some  god,  notably 
Sin  of  Harran.  Urta  of  Kalhu  has  some  hope  of  receiving  a 
great  bronze  bow  if  the  sale  is  contested.  A  trace  of  earlier 
savagery  survives  in  another  where  the  Lady  of  the  Waste, 
Sin,  or  Adad,  await  the  burning  alive  of  the  eldest  son  or  daugh¬ 
ter  of  the  offender.  The  penalty  points  to  human  sacrifice 
in  the  more  or  less  distant  past,  perhaps  it  is  not  quite  safe 
to  assume  on  the  basis  of  these  threats  that  it  was  a  regular 
part  of  the  ritual. 

More  innocent,  grotesque  indeed  to  our  minds,  though  ter¬ 
rible  enough  to  the  Assyrian,  was  the  ordeal.  The  offender  is 
to  eat  a  pound  of  some  magical  food,  he  is  to  drink  the  con¬ 
tents  of  a  written  bowl.  None  of  these  written  bowls  has 
come  down  to  us  from  Assyrian  times,  but  the  custom  sur¬ 
vived  and  a  few  generations  later  Mandseans,  Syrians,  and 
Jews  wrote  in  their  respective  languages,  or  even  in  Pehlevi 
and  Arabic,  on  similar  bowls  and  believed  in  the  efficacy  of 
their  charms.1 

Other  penalties  are  pulling  out  the  tongue,  presentation  of 
a  talent  of  lead  to  the  chief,  or  a  talent  of  lapis  lazuli.  That 
these  threats  were  not  always  in  vain  is  proved  by  the  list  of 
temple  lands  where  are  included  the  fields  presented  by  the 
governor  of  Sime  in  the  days  of  Tiglath  Pileser  as  blood-money. 
The  sales  clauses  of  these  contracts  closely  parallel  the  charter 
of  the  Babylonian  Marduk-nadin-ahe,  and  there  is  some  likeli¬ 
hood  that  we  should  find  there  the  original  of  these  phrases.2 

Sales  for  land  follow  much  the  same  form  as  the  slave  sales. 
There  was  no  separate  form  for  mortgages,  for  a  mortgage 

1  J .  481;  for  the  later  bowls,  cf.  J.  A.  Montgomery,  Aramaic  Incantation  Texts, 
1913.  The  three  bowls  found  at  Ashur,  MDOG.,  XLIII,  13,  as  well  as  the  one 
shown  me  at  Mosul,  are  later  than  Assyrian  times. 

2  J.  806;  Johns,  Deeds,  III,  338;  366. 


BUSINESS  ARCHIVES 


547 


meant  a  quasi-sale  and  it  was  the  regular  custom  to  hand  over 
the  article  mortgaged  for  use  in  the  place  of  interest.  Thus 
the  “governess/’  though  of  royal  blood,  mortgaged  a  field  to 
Inibi  Ashur  who  “ate”  it,  that  is,  enjoyed  its  usufruct,  until 
a  messenger  should  come  from  the  house  of  its  lords,  when 
he  freed  the  field  from  the  mortgage  for  the  benefit  of  its  lords.1 

By  the  sales  formulas,  Milkia,  governor  of  Rimusi,  who 
was  in  Nineveh  in  681,  raises  twenty  pounds  on  an  estate  at 
Shadi  Samalla  in  Rimusi,  with  twenty-seven  serfs,  their  fields, 
houses,  gardens,  cattle,  sheep,  and  family  possessions  as  se¬ 
curity.  His  need  must  have  been  pressing,  perhaps  he  was 
already  anticipating  the  rough  times  which  were  coming  with 
the  assassination  of  Sennacherib  a  few  months  later,  for  he 
received  but  a  fraction  of  what  the  estate  was  worth.2 

A  fourth  group  consisted  of  the  “judgments.”  In  Baby¬ 
lonia  there  was  a  bank  of  judges,  in  Assyria  a  single  judge 
was  deemed  sufficient.  The  majority  of  the  judgments  which 
have  come  down  to  us  were  decided  by  the  sartenu  or  chief 
justice,  though  other  cases  were  tried  before  the  mayor,  his 
deputy,  the  delegate,  or  the  inspector.  A  typical  case  would 
run  as  follows:  “Judgment  in  favour  of  Nabu-shar-usur,  the 
scribe,  against  Ahu-lamashshi,  the  son  of  Dilil  Ishtar,  of  Sha- 
bireshu,  an  irrigator,  at  the  hand  of  Ahu-unqur,  son  of  Akkul- 
lanu,  the  harvest  overseer  of  the  chief  cellarer,  in  regard  to 
the  restoration  of  a  bull  which  Ahu-lamashshi  stole  from  the 
house  of  Nabu-shar-usur.  Before  the  deputy  mayor  of  Nineveh 
they  came,  one  bull,  the  equivalent  of  the  bull  he  stole,  he 
imposed  upon  Ahu-lamashshi.  In  lack  of  his  fine,  he  was  held  ; 
the  day  he  brings  the  bull,  he  is  free.”  3 

“Seal  of  Nabu-taris,  slave  of  Sapanu.  Four  souls,  slaves 
of  Shangu  Ishtar,  he  stole.  Before  the  delegate  he  was  brought, 
two  hundred  and  ten  pounds  of  bronze  were  imposed  upon 
him.  In  lack  of  the  bronze,  he  is  detained.  Whoever  shall 
give  Shangu  Ishtar  the  two  hundred  and  ten  pounds  may  re¬ 
lease  his  slave.”  Regular  sale  formulas  follow.4 


1 J.  62. 

3  /.  160, 


2  J.  59. 

4  J.  161. 


548 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


While  Adad-risua  was  away  and  only  his  woman  Shulmu- 
naid  was  in  charge,  Kanunu  took  the  opportunity  to  claim 
her  as  a  slave.  The  mayor,  Nabu-ahe-iddina,  decided  that 
Adad-risua  must  be  given  full  opportunity  to  appear;  if  he 
does  not  appear  at  the  set  time,  the  guarantor,  a  certain  Nabu- 
ahi-iddina,  shall  give  Kanunu  slave  for  slave.1 

One  case  may  be  considered  to  represent  equity  proceed¬ 
ings:  “Seal  of  Bel-shar-usur,  the  footman.  Judgment  which 
Ninua  contested  with  Bel-shar-usur  concerning  his  slaves. 
If  on  the  new  moon  of  June  Bel-shar-usur  has  not  brought 
his  arrears  to  Ahu-eriba  and  Adad-shum-iddina,  in  the  hands 
of  Ninua  has  not  laid  it,  the  silver  is  lost.  If  he  brings  his  ar¬ 
rears  and  places  it  in  the  hand  of  Ninua,  Ninua  shall  give  thirty 
shekels  of  silver  to  Bel-shar-usur.  Also,  when  Lategi-ana- 
Ashur  is  seen,  his  compensation  he  shall  give.”  2 

Shamash-nasir  brings  suit  against  Arbailu-hamat,  wife  of 
Sananu,  and  her  son  Nabu-eriba,  two  souls  from  the  city  of 
the  king’s  daughter,  concerning  his  income  and  his  pledge,  as 
follows:  “One  pound  of  silver  have  I  given  you,  from  the  house 
of  the  king’s  official  have  I  brought  you  forth,  your  property, 
fifty  ass  loads  of  grain,  a  watering-machine,  and  one  ox,  worth 
twelve  and  a  half  pounds  of  silver,  have  I  taken.”  Arbailu- 
hamat  and  Nabu-eriba  replied:  “For  the  objects  pledged  we 
will  serve  you.”  Arbailu-hamat,  Nabu-eriba,  and  three  others 
shall  serve  Shamash-nasir.  Whoever  to-morrow  or  the  next 
day  brings  suit,  whether  her  brother  or  her  governor,  shall 
give  pledges  to  Shamash-nasir,  he  shall  take  them  out,  they 
shall  be  free.3 

Salmu-sharra-iqbi  appears  in  the  role  of  a  doubtful  bene¬ 
factor.  He  has  redeemed  Mannu-ki  Urta,  his  wife  Arbailu- 
sharrat,  and  his  daughter  from  the  merchant,  perhaps  a  for¬ 
eigner,  and  has  secured  for  them  technical  freedom.  But  since 
good  money  has  been  invested,  they  are  to  work  for  him  to 
pay  the  interest  on  his  investment  until  the  governor  or  some 
one  else  pays  the  money  and  redeems  them.4 


1 J.  166. 

3  FS.,  I,  96;  KU.,  655. 


2  J.  105. 
4  J.  85. 


BUSINESS  ARCHIVES 


549 


We  have  also  cases  of  self-pledge,  as  where  Nargi  promises 
to  serve  Bel-duri,  the  subgovernor  of  the  crown  prince,  for 
grain  and  a  bull  loaned  him  from  the  crown  prince’s  stores, 
and  he  will  serve  until  return  can  be  made.  In  place  of  silver 
will  Belit-ittia,  the  slave  of  the  governess,  serve  Sinqi  Ishtar 
as  long  as  she  lives.  How  a  woman  who  is  already  once  en¬ 
slaved  can  be  again  enslaved  because  she  has  not  lived  up  to 
her  contract  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the  very  peculiar  As¬ 
syrian  slave  system.1 

Two  cases  of  murder  are  cited.  Silim-ili  has  killed  a  slave 
of  Siri.  As  substitute  for  the  slave,  he  is  to  give  his  wife,  his 
brother,  or  one  of  the  others  who  seal  the  tablet.  If  this  is 
quite  alien  to  our  thought,  the  other  is  still  more  so.  Samaku 
has  been  killed  by  Atar-qamu,  the  scribe.  Sahish,  daughter 
of  Atar-qamu,  with  her  family,  is  to  be  given  to  Shamash- 
mukin-ahi,  Samaku’s  son,  “in  the  place  of  the  blood,  the  blood 
will  be  washed  out.  If  he  does  not  give  the  girl,  they  shall 
kill  him  upon  the  grave  of  Samaku.”  The  case  must  have 
been  of  unusual  interest,  for  Ashur-bani-apal  was  himself  con¬ 
cerned  and  the  witnesses  are  headed  by  his  turtanu,  Adalal, 
and  by  Adad-babau,  turtanu  of  the  crown  prince.2 

Dedications  to  the  gods  appear.  Mannu-diq,  shield-bearer 
and  minor  official,  dedicates  his  son  Nabu-sharik-napishti  to 
Urta  of  Kalhu  for  the  life  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  king  of  Assyria. 
Strangely  enough,  even  with  this  pious  object  in  view,  there 
was  danger  of  the  son  being  reclaimed,  if  not  by  his  relatives, 
then  by  his  governor  and  his  captain  of  fifty.3 

Placing  side  by  side  two  tablets  from  different  sources,  we 
may  trace  a  little  tragedy.  This  same  Urta  of  Kalhu  had  been 
served  by  the  lady  Paimtu  as  a  sacred  prostitute.  A  son  born 
during  this  period,  Dur-maki  Ishtar,  had  been  handed  over 
to  his  uncles  Bel-naid  and  Nabu-naid  and  to  his  cousin  Ardi 
Ishtar.  Not  entirely  proud  of  his  birth,  they  quietly  put  him 
out  of  the  way  and  at  the  same  time  secured  cheap  credit  for 
themselves  by  dedicating  him  to  the  Urta  of  Kalhu  in  whose 
service  he  had  been  born.  Here  he  should  await  tax  and  forced 

ij.  152;  76.  2J-  CIS;  321.  3  J.  641. 


550 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


labour.  Quite  grandiloquently  they  close  with  the  blessing  and 
curse  especially  dedicated  to  royal  charters:  “You  who  here¬ 
after  against  this  document  do  no  injury,  Nabu  wilL  hear  your 
prayers;  but  whoever  does  damage,  may  Urta,  whom  in  his 
prayers  he  names,  forever  be  hostile.”  1 

After  a  time,  Raimtu  retired  from  the  service  of  the  god 
and  married  a  respectable  husband,  Sinqi  Ishtar.  Her  life  in 
the  temple  had  made  the  probability  of  her  bearing  more  chil¬ 
dren  remote  if  not  impossible,  her  own  son,  Dur-maki  Ishtar, 
was  lost  to  her  in  the  service  of  Urta,  and  the  pair  decided  to 
adopt  Ashur-sabatsu-iqbi,  the  son  of  her  brother  Nabu-naid. 
His  true  father  carefully  protected  his  position,  “Even  though 
seven  heirs  be  born  to  Sinqi  Ishtar  and  Raimtu,  Ashur-sabatsu- 
iqbi  is  their  eldest  son  and  heir,”  but  he  has  lost  all  control 
over  his  son;  if  Nabu-naid  attempts  to  reclaim  his  son,  “his 
eldest  son  and  heir  he  shall  burn  in  the  offering  house  of  Adad.” 
Another  son  had  been  torn  from  his  parent.2 

And  now  we  have  fragments  of  an  Assyrian  code.  Since 
copies  of  the  great  code  associated  with  the  name  of  Ham¬ 
murabi  had  been  found  in  Nineveh,  it  was  naturally  assumed 
that  it  or  a  modification  was  used  by  the  Assyrians,  though 
important  differences  had  been  found  in  their  business  records. 
Similarities  to  the  older  code  are  indeed  found,  but  it  is  doubt¬ 
ful  if  there  was  any  direct  relation. 

Our  code  is  to  be  dated  about  the  middle  of  the  second  mil¬ 
lennium,  when  the  city  of  Ashur  was  still  the  one  urban  centre 
in  the  little  kingdom.  It  is  therefore  much  later  than  the  Ham¬ 
murabi  code,  but  this  is  early  in  the  Assyrian  development 
and  it  may  have  been  modified  in  the  millennium  which  fol¬ 
lowed.  For  good  and  for  evil,  it  represents  a  different  stage 
in  social  evolution,  but  it  also  represents  differences  in  tem¬ 
perament.  The  part  best  preserved  is  seemingly  the  last  tablet. 
It  deals  largely  with  crimes  and  with  the  position  of  women; 
the  number  of  punishments  mentioned  in  the  sections  pre¬ 
served  and  the  large  amount  of  social  vice  indicated  make 


1  J.  640. 

2  Peiser,  OLZ.,  VI,  198  ff.;  KU.,  41. 


BUSINESS  ARCHIVES 


551 


an  unfortunate  impression  which  would  have  not  appeared 
so  strongly  if  we  possessed  the  whole  of  the  laws. 

Drastic  as  are  the  punishments,  one  characteristic  feature 
of  primitive  codes,  the  law  of  talio  or  like  for  like,  is  almost 
entirely  missing;  another  characteristic  of  early  law,  payment 
instead  of  personal  punishment  for  crimes,  is  likewise  absent. 
There  is  no  evidence  for  those  variations  of  punishment,  ac¬ 
cording  as  the  sinner  or  the  sinned  against  is  an  aristocrat,  a 
freeman,  or  a  serf;  it  deals  with  Assyrians,  and  we  have  had 
frequent  opportunity  to  observe  that  even  the  deported  were 
reckoned  as  Assyrians  when  tribute,  tax,  and  corvee  were  in¬ 
flicted  upon  them.  We  may  therefore  say  that  all  Assyrians 
were  equal  before  the  law.  In  each  of  these  cases,  the  As¬ 
syrian  code  is  the  more  modern ! 

Punishments  are  much  the  same  as  we  find  in  the  Hebrew 
codes,  lashes,  mutilation  of  members,  boring  the  ear.  More 
horrible  punishments,  such  as  impalement  or  castration,  are 
reserved  for  crimes  which  public  opinion  has  always  consid¬ 
ered  peculiarly  abhorrent,  abortion  or  unnatural  vice.  Mis¬ 
demeanours  may  be  compounded  by  a  fine,  payable  in  lead,  as 
in  our  modern  courts.  The  frequency  of  a  month  in  the 
king’s  service  points  to  the  larger  part  played  by  the  power  of 
the  state.  Self-help  is  legally  confined  to  violations  of  family 
honour,  just  as  our  modern  jury  so  regularly  administers  the 
“unwritten  law.”  Assyria  was  our  superior  in  one  respect; 
the  man  in  the  case  suffered  the  same  punishment  as  the  sin¬ 
ning  woman. 

Less  pleasant  is  the  realisation  that  wives  are  the  property 
of  their  husbands  and  are  treated  as  such.  Marriage  has  as 
little  sentiment  connected  with  it  as  in  Babylonia,  and  the 
wife  is  a  less  equal  partner.  Preliminary  negotiations  are  con¬ 
ducted  by  the  parents  and  a  large  portion  of  the  extant  code 
carefully  enumerates  the  rights  of  the  different  parties  at  each 
stage  of  the  performance.  The  bridegroom’s  father  must  pre¬ 
sent  the  father  of  the  prospective  bride  with  certain  gifts,  but 
this  is  not  absolute  pledge;  if  the  betrothed  girl  dies  before 
actual  consummation  of  the  marriage,  the  money  may  be  re- 


552 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


stored,  or  the  bargain  may  be  met  by  another  daughter.  This 
is  quite  in  line  with  the  mercantile  attitude  of  the  Baby¬ 
lonians. 

At  the  time  of  marriage,  the  husband  must  present  his  wife 
with  a  bride-gift,  the  bride  brings  a  dowry.  While  a  wife  she 
has  no  control  over  her  husband’s  property,  and  if  she  sells 
or  even  pawns  his  possessions,  she  is  treated  as  a  thief  and  the 
one  who  takes  it  from  her  is  prosecuted  as  the  receiver  of  stolen 
property.  If  his  wife  steals  from  others,  her  husband  may 
ransom  her  or  leave  her  to  the  punishment  of  cutting  off  her 
nose.  Much  space  is  devoted  to  crimes  against  women;  a 
wife  or  daughter  is  thought  of  as  property  which  has  been 
damaged;  the  husband  may  take  back  his  damaged  goods  and 
inflict  such  punishment  as  he  desires  or  he  may  ask  the  au¬ 
thorities  to  inflict  it,  but  in  either  case  the  man  receives  the 
same  penalty. 

Divorce  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  husband  and  if  he 
wishes  he  may  give  his  cast-off  wife  something,  or  he  may  send 
her  away  empty-handed ;  when  she  returns  to  the  house  of  her 
father,  now  her  sole  refuge,  he  may  follow  her  up  and  deprive 
her  of  her  bride-gift.  Her  dowry  remains  for  her  sons,  though 
even  here  the  father  may  distribute  it  as  he  wishes.  On  his 
death,  what  her  husband  specifically  gave  her  remains  hers, 
even  though  she  has  no  son,  but  if  she  has  children,  it  belongs 
to  them.  A  widow  without  children  was  married  by  custom 
to  another  brother  of  her  husband  or  even  to  her  father-in- 
law,  quite  in  the  fashion  of  the  Biblical  levirate.  If  none  of 
these  survive,  she  is  a  widow  with  a  tablet  to  testify  to  her 
abnormal  status. 

“ Widows”  with  such  a  tablet  formed  the  one  group  of 
women  which  was  virtually  the  equal  of  man.  If  she  married 
a  man  and  lived  in  his  house,  she  lost  control  of  her  possessions, 
but  if  he  entered  her  house,  all  his  property  was  transferred 
to  the  heiress.  The  one  exception  to  the  rule  that  every  mar¬ 
riage  is  a  contract,  and  therefore  must  have  a  written  witness, 
is  in  the  case  of  the  widow.  If  for  two  years  she  lives  in  a  man’s 
house,  a  common-law  marriage  is  presumed. 


BUSINESS  ARCHIVES 


553 


A  wife  abandoned  by  her  husband  must  remain  unmarried 
for  five  years,  the  sixth  she  is  free.  But  if  she  does  break  the 
marriage  contract  by  remarrying,  the  only  penalty  is  that  she 
must  return  to  her  first  husband,  leaving  the  children  of  the 
second  marriage  to  her  second  husband.  If,  however,  it  is  a 
mere  case  of  betrothal  and  her  husband  has  been  taken  captive 
by  the  enemy,  two  years  is  all  she  need  wait.  If  she  has  neither 
father-in-law  nor  son  to  provide  for  her,  she  may  make  oath 
that  she  has  no  means  of  support  and  become  a  dependent  of 
the  palace.  On  request  of  the  judges,  the  officials  grant  her 
for  two  years  the  estate  formerly  cultivated  by  her  husband; 
at  the  end  of  that  time  she  is  free  to  marry  the  man  of  her  heart, 
she  is  given  a  certificate  of  widowhood.  If  her  husband  was 
in  the  king’s  service,  he  recovers  his  property  at  his  return 
without  more  ado;  if  he  was  not,  he  must  pay  the  state  for 
her  support  before  he  can  recover.  If  he  does  not  return  at 
the  end  of  the  two  years,  the  property  escheats  to  the  king. 

If  an  abandoned  wife  has  a  son  but  no  special  gift  from  her 
husband,  she  may  dwell  with  whatsoever  son  she  desires.  As 
a  bride  whom  one  loves,  they  shall  bind  themselves  to  her, 
even  though  she  be  but  a  stepmother.  In  return,  she  shall  do 
their  labour. 

The  lawgiver  quite  agreed  with  St.  Paul  as  to  the  lack 
of  propriety  in  women  appearing  in  public  with  uncovered 
heads.  Only  women  of  the  lowest  moral  character  might  walk 
the  streets  with  bare  heads  and  on  them  it  was  obligatory. 
Slave  women  were  in  an  intermediate  class,  for  their  heads 
were  covered  but  their  faces  were  unveiled.  Any  sort  of  marital 
relation,  full  wife,  concubine,  captive,  even  women  whose  past 
had  been  notorious,  if  now  they  were  legally  married  and  so 
the  property  of  their  husbands,  were  veiled  and  covered.  Veil¬ 
ing  or  head-covering  out  of  one’s  class  was  severely  punished. 
We  have  here  the  beginning  of  Oriental  seclusion. 

Quite  in  the  spirit  of  Deuteronomy  is  the  provision  for  the 
legal  marriage  of  the  captive  woman;  her  possessor  need  only 
place  her  veiled  among  a  half-dozen  of  his  comrades  and  de¬ 
clare  her  his  wife.  Even  though  he  had  not  done  this,  her 


554 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


children  inherited  if  there  were  no  children  by  the  “  veiled 
wife.” 

Aside  from  crimes  connected  with  women,  the  only  crime 
mentioned  in  the  extant  portions  is  sorcery,  whose  punish¬ 
ment  was  death.  Report  on  this  crime  was  to  be  made  direct 
to  the  king.  Sorcery,  we  may  suspect,  was  feared  in  Assyria 
as  in  the  later  Roman  Empire,  because  it  was  so  frequently 
connected  with  conspiracy  against  the  state.  When  the  sor¬ 
cerer  is  seized,  he  is  reminded  of  his  oath  of  loyalty  to  the  king 
and  the  crown  prince. 

Property  laws  are  preserved  to  a  much  less  degree.  Prop¬ 
erty  is  considered  to  belong  primarily  to  the  family,  the  eldest 
son  has  a  double  portion,  the  younger  sons  work  for  him  on 
an  undivided  estate.  Crimes  against  property  were  severely 
treated.  Encroachment  of  boundaries  meant  a  triple  restitu¬ 
tion,  blows,  and  a  month  of  the  king’s  service.  Utilisation  of 
a  field  against  the  wishes  of  the  owner  was  not  condoned,  the 
cultivator  lost  his  produce  and  was  punished.  Irrigation  was 
carefully  regulated,  and  in  case  of  dispute  each  lost  common 
rights  and  was  confined  to  his  own. 

In  the  business  documents,  we  frequently  find  the  state¬ 
ment  that  no  reclamation  is  to  be  made  by  any  member  of  a 
rather  large  family  group.  The  code  shows  how  it  is  carried 
out.  After  the  agreement  is  made,  a  month  elapses  while  a 
high  official  proclaims  three  times  throughout  the  city  of  Ashur 
that  such  and  such  a  one  desires  to  acquire  a  certain  property 
from  such  a  one,  and  if  any  person  has  a  claim  against  it,  let 
him  present  it  to  the  proper  official.  He  is  to  be  assisted  by 
the  delegate,  the  city  scribe,  the  recorder,  the  mayor,  and 
three  of  the  official  nobility.  If  no  one  appears,  the  judges 
shall  draw  up  three  copies  of  the  proclamation  for  preserva¬ 
tion  with  the  recorder.1 

1  O.  Schroeder,  Keilschrifttexte  aus  Assur,  V erschiedenen  Inhalts ,  1  ff.;  143  f.; 
193.  Jastrow,  J AOS.,  XLI,  1  ff.;  Scheil,  Recueil  des  Lois  Assyriennes ;  Luckenbill, 
AJSL.,  XXXIX,  56  ff. 


OH  A  PTER  XLIII 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 

Excavators  of  Assyrian  sites  must  all  have  been  monarch¬ 
ists.  While  in  Babylonia  and  Palestine  and  Egypt  we  are 
rather  well  acquainted  with  the  life  of  the  everv-dav  citizen, 
in  Assyria  we  are  largely  confined  to  the  palaces.  We  may 
make  ourselves  at  home  in  their  courts,  we  can  reconstruct 
their  past  life  through  the  letters  and  documents:  when  we 
would  inquire  of  the  commons,  we  must  depend  on  the  analo¬ 
gies  of  the  palaces  or  on  supposed  parallels  from  Babylonia. 

A  life  of  the  utmost  plainness  was  lived  by  the  countryman, 
the  serf;  civilisation  in  Assyria  was  essentially  urban.  Great 
differences  existed  in  detail  between  imperial  capital  and  ham¬ 
let,  but  the  fundamental  contrast  between  city  and  country 
lay  in  the  greater  complexity  found  in  the  former. 

City  man  lived  behind  walls,  which  cramped  him.  yet  not 
to  the  degree  noticeable  in  the  mediaeval  cities  of  Europe.  The 
circuit  of  his  walls  was  great  and  there  was  room  within  for 
gardens  and  open  spaces  if  the  city  was  large;  if  it  was  small, 
the  open  country  was  near;  in  any  case  he  possessed  estates 
outside  the  walls  and  yet  within  the  legal  limits  of  the  munic¬ 
ipality.  Pleasant  meeting-places  were  the  gates  and  the  squares 
behind  where  visitors  must  perforce  enter,  and  thus  could  not 
escape  the  curiosity  of  the  residents  who  congregated  there  for 
gossip,  for  business,  for  judgment,  or,  in  the  modern  phrase, 
simply  to  u smell  the  air.” 

Since  the  twentieth  pre-Christian  century  at  least.  Babylon 
had  employed  the  checker-board  system  of  streets:  Ashur  too 
employed  the  system  with  the  streets  diagonal  to  the  compass 
points  for  shade,  and  Dur  Sharrukin  likewise  used  it.  In  the 
later  days,  when  Ashur  decayed,  the  system  was  abandoned 
and  we  have  one  short  stretch  where  the  street  turns  five  times 
at  right  angles.  Streets  proper  ranged  from  ten  to  twelve 

555 


556 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


feet  wide,  alleys  half  of  that;  they  were  paved  with  blocks  of 
stone  or  cobbles  and  were  well  drained.  Outside  the  walls, 
the  royal  road  was  paved  and  had  mile-stones. 

Abutting  directly  upon  the  street  or  opening  off  a  small 
court  or  a  narrow  alley  were  the  houses.  No  sight  could  be 
duller  than  a  street  in  the  residential  section  with  its  staring 
blank  walls  of  mud  brick.  Very  interesting  is  the  group  of 


residences  built  over  the  ruins  of  Tukulti  Urta’s  palace  in  the 
seventh  century.  The  builders  as  a  rule  dug  down  to  the  level 
of  the  royal  terrace,  upon  that  was  laid  adobe,  then  the  stone 
foundations,  and  finally  the  clay  walls.  The  walls  are  rarely 
more  than  one  stone  thick,  say  about  a  foot,  and  a  second 
story  is  virtually  excluded. 

One  entered  the  house  through  a  small  vestibule  which  shut 
out  the  interior  from  prying  eyes;  in  the  case  of  one  early  resi¬ 
dence,  the  visitor  must  pass  down  a  long  narrow  corridor, 
then  around  the  corner  directly  back  again,  and  then  forward 
to  the  court.  In  the  centre  was  the  courtyard,  paved  with 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


557 


stones  and  brick  or  with  cobbles  in  squares,  rosettes,  and  vari¬ 
ous  other  geometric  designs.  Around  the  court  were  the  rooms. 
In  the  more  pretentious,  there  were  separate  units  for  each 
sex.  Each  possessed  a  large  reception-room,  whose  walls  were 
covered  with  a  mixture 
of  clay  and  chaff,  with  a 
preparation  of  gypsum, 
or  perhaps  there  was  a 
band  of  red  or  a  base¬ 
board  of  black  bitumen. 

Rich  rugs  and  hangings 
broke  the  room’s  monot¬ 
ony,  and  niches  set  in 
the  side  walls  provided 
storage  by  day  for  cush¬ 
ions  and  bedclothes. 

Only  the  bathroom,  with 
its  asphalted  floor  and 
walls  and  with  its  drain, 
showed  further  sign  of 
specialisation. 

After  all,  house  inte¬ 
riors  were  for  the  rare 
days  when  cold  or  rain 
drove  one  indoors,  or  for 
the  escape  from  the  mid¬ 
day  sun.  Family  life 
centred  around  the  open  court  by  day,  by  night  one  ascended 
the  stairs  to  the  flat  roof  for  repose.  When  a  man  departed  to 
his  eternal  rest,  it  was  only  to  be  fixed  the  more  closely  in  his 
earthly  home,  for  he  was  buried  under  its  floor. 

In  the  corner  of  every  court  was  a  rubbing-stone  on  which 
the  grain  was  ground  into  flour.  A  hot  fire  of  thorns  or  a  slower 
one  of  charcoal  or  dung  was  placed  inside  a  jar  laid  on  the 
side,  the  dough  was  pasted  on,  and  immediately  it  was  ready, 
thin  and  delicate.  Ordinarily  the  bread  was  of  barley;  on  feast- 
days  the  more  expensive  wheat  was  made  into  the  cakes  so  be¬ 
loved  of  the  women  in  the  days  of  Jeremiah.  Garden-truck 


EARLY  ASSYRIAN  HOUSE 


Map  11.  EARLY  ASSYRIAN  HOUSE  AT 
ASHUR. 


558 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


was  brought  in  from  the  gardens  just  outside  the  walls,  and 
with  barley  bread  formed  the  main  support  of  the  people. 
Dates  did  not  ripen  so  far  north,  but  might  be  imported  from 
Babylonia  where  they  were  the  chief  staple. 

Meat  was  rarely  eaten,  save  by  the  highest  classes.  Beef 
was  virtually  unknown,  for  the  ox  was  too  expensive  to  be  used 
other  than  in  agriculture.  Mutton  was  the  food  of  the  better 
off,  goat’s  flesh  or  even  the  unclean  and  rather  dangerous  swine 
of  the  lower  classes,  who,  however,  found  their  meat  rather  in 
ducks  and  geese.  If  the  cock  had  been  introduced,  he  was 
still  little  known.  At  times  meats  were  boiled  in  a  huge  kettle; 
more  often  they  were  roasted  or  the  fire  was  raked  out  of  the 
jar  already  used  for  baking,  the  flesh  placed  inside,  and  the 
mouth  closed.  Roast  kid  from  this  fireless  cooker  was  of  a 
most  gratifying  delicacy.  Dairy  products  were  common,  in 
general  derived  from  goat’s  milk,  and  sesame,  honey,  and  fruit 
syrups  took  the  place  of  sugar  in  the  preparation  of  dainties. 

A  well  in  the  courtyard  of  each  house  at  Ashur  furnished 
water,  farther  north  cisterns  were  more  popular.  Jugs  and 
goat-skins  brought  water  from  the  river  until  canals  led  cold 
water  from  the  mountains.  Cow’s  milk  was  an  undreamed 
luxury,  but  goats,  sheep,  and  camels  furnished  a  scanty  sup¬ 
ply.  Barley  beer  was  borrowed  from  Babylonia,  where  the 
common  people  complained  that  it  was  too  diluted  to  have 
much  intoxicating  power,  though  for  a  man  of  wealth  it  might 
be  secured  “ extra  strong.”  Date  and  other  brandies  were 
imported  chiefly  from  the  south,  but  neither  beer  nor  brandy 
was  in  much  esteem  in  Assyria.  No  grapes  were  pressed  in 
the  Triangle,  but  the  near-by  mountains  furnished  a  supply 
of  cheap  wine.  We  shall  not  soon  forget  the  pleasure  of  Ashur- 
nasir-apal  as  he  “ looks  upon  the  wine  when  it  is  red,”  or  the 
manner  in  which  the  helpers  of  Sennacherib  found  their  hearts 
drenched  with  wine.1  Already  it  had  been  observed  that  the 
strong  drink  which  caused  men  to  stagger  also  possessed  the 
faculty  of  making  them  see  double. 

When  the  Assyrian  went  abroad,  his  first  choice  was  the 

1  Cf.  pp.  107,  324. 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


559 


market.  We  may  attempt  its  reconstruction  from  its  modern 
descendant,  a  series  of  narrow  roofed  streets,  to  keep  out  the 
sun  and  perchance  conceal  defects  in  the  goods  offered.  Vari¬ 
ous  articles  were  sold,  each  in  its  separate  street,  with  the  mer¬ 
chants  squatting  on  a  low  platform,  their  goods  around  them 
till  nightfall,  when  they  would  be  locked  into  the  little  box  of 
a  room  in  the  rear.  One  of  these  quarters,  that  of  the  metal¬ 
workers,  we  can  locate  at  the  northwest  corner  of  the  city  of 
Ashur,  for  its  greatest  gate  bore  their  name.  Travelling  mer¬ 
chants  of  the  better  class  displayed  their  wares  at  Ashur  in 
what  corresponds  to  the  modern  khan,  where,  around  a  great 
court  paved  with  rough  stones,  were  the  sleeping-rooms  and 
the  long  narrow  stalls  with  many  bronze  bits  to  testify  to  the 
former  presence  of  horses. 

Manufacture  was  almost  literally  “ handiwork.”  There 
was  a  little  simple  machinery,  the  spindle  and  loom  for  cloth, 
the  wheel  and  the  oven  for  pottery,  but  beyond  this  the  crafts¬ 
man  had  barely  passed.  Now  and  then  the  craft  was  carried 
on  at  home,  but  more  regularly  the  work  would  be  done  in 
little  shops  just  off  the  market,  and  the  articles  were  sold  by 
the  man  who  made  them.  Each  craft  had  its  guild  with  its 
patron  saint  and  its  chief  who  was  its  direct  representative 
with  the  government. 

Once  Ashur  had  followed  the  simple  fashion  of  the  Shu- 
merian,  but  those  days  were  long  gone.  The  skirt  of  primitive 
times  had  changed  into  a  dress  slung  from  the  left  shoulder, 
and  this  in  turn  into  a  sleeved  tunic  with  long  skirt.  Shume- 
rians  did  not  scruple  to  appear  nearly  or  quite  naked;  the 
Semitic  sense  of  shame  increased  the  body-covering,  which 
reaches  its  extreme  in  the  dress  of  the  Assyrian  monarch  where 
even  the  leg  is  concealed.  In  the  few  cases  where  we  have 
women  of  the  upper  classes  represented,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
queen  of  Ashur-bani-apal,1  they  dressed  with  even  greater 
elaborateness. 

Wool  was  the  ordinary  material  for  clothing.  It  was  very 
cheap,  since  the  steppe  was  filled  with  sheep,  but  it  was  not 

1  Cf.  p.  502. 


560 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


well  adapted  to  so  hot  a  climate.  Against  the  summer  sun, 
it  did  furnish  needed  protection,  but  it  was  too  heavy  for 
strenuous  labour  and  it  was  none  too  cleanly.  After  the  wool 
had  been  carded  and  the  thread  spun  with  spindle  and  whorl, 
it  was  woven  at  home  on  a  simple  loom. 

For  inside  use,  the  higher  classes  preferred  linen,  which  had 
long  since  been  imported  from  Egypt,  though  now  some  flax 
was  grown  in  western  Asia.  A  king  of  the  northern  Judah 
boasts  that  in  his  days  fine  linen  became  extremely  common, 
and  he  takes  to  himself  the  credit,  since  he  ruled  justly;  credit 
should  rather  be  given  to  the  closer  connection  of  the  age  with 
Egypt.1  Cotton,  to  us  the  cheapest  of  materials,  was  first 
known  in  the  reign  of  Sennacherib,  and  we  may  be  quite  sure 
that  only  members  of  his  immediate  entourage  received  dresses 
made  from  the  trees  whose  wool  they  shred.2 

Preparation  of  the  clothing  for  the  palace  was  an  important 
industry,  in  whose  manufacture  and  yearly  transportation 
the  highest  officials  took  part.  Kurban  on  the  northeast  fron¬ 
tier  was  a  noted  centre  of  weaving,  and  the  weavers  of  Ishtar 
of  Arbela  were  equally  famous.  Pure- white  garments  were 
required  for  many  ceremonies  and  the  fuller’s  art  was  much 
appreciated.  More  often  the  garments  were  dyed  in  what  we 
should  consider  the  most  glaring  colours,  though  they  fitted 
well  enough  the  clear  southern  sunshine.  Purples  prepared 
from  the  shells  of  the  murex  and  similar  varieties  by  the  Phoe¬ 
nicians  were  the  most  fashionable.  Each  shell  when  broken 
provided  but  the  tiniest  pin-point  of  moisture,  and  the  further 
preparation  and  fixing  of  the  colour  was  a  most  intricate  and 
delicate  process.  Because  of  this  expensiveness,  the  tribute 
lists  are  full  of  its  mention. 

Many  are  the  references  to  leather-working  and  many  the 
representations  of  sandals.  A  tablet  of  702  found  in  Carche- 
mish  seems  to  be  an  agreement  with  a  group  of  Aramaeans 
from  the  old  Mitanni  region  to  furnish  oak  and  sumach  for 
the  purpose  of  tanning.3  In  addition,  skins  were  prepared  for 
parchment. 

1  Cf.  p.  184.  2  Cf.  p.  331.  3  Thompson,  Carchemish ,  135  ff. 


Fig.  159.  ASSYRIAN  VASE  WITH  RELIEF 
(Nies  Collection.) 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


561 


Of  the  implements  used  in  the  average  house,  the  most  neces¬ 
sary  were  the  work  of  the  potter’s  art.  Babylonia  was  proba¬ 
bly  the  home  of  the  wheel,  which  was  known  in  the  earliest 
time,  but  the  great  majority  of  the  coarser  vessels  were  made 
by  hand.  These  were  generally  of  the  crude  clay  and  in  the 
sickly  greenish  colour  of  nature.  Their  interior,  especially  if 
they  were  to  contain  liquids,  was  coated  with  a  thick  layer  of 
coal-black  bitumen.  Turned  on  one  side,  they  formed  the 


Fig.  160.  GLASS  AND  ALABASTER  VESSELS  WITH  NAME  OF  SARGON. 


oven  or  the  fireless  cooker;  placed  in  supports  in  the  ground, 
the  jars  might  be  filled  with  wine. 

Earlier  strata  at  Ashur  give  fine  polished  vases,  or  white 
paint  on  black  or  a  dark  violet  in  geometrical  designs.  Kalhu 
presents  spirals,  honeysuckles,  cones,  and  tulips  in  black  on 
a  pale  ground.  For  our  finest  examples,  thin  egg-shell  bodies 
and  delicate  painting  or  even  white  dusting,  we  must  go  to 
such  provincial  centres  as  Nasibina.  Fragments  have  been 
found  in  the  capitals  of  a  white  glaze  so  fine  that  earlier  writers 
called  it  true  porcelain,  and  that  it  was  a  native  production 
is  proved  by  the  discovery  of  crucibles  and  slag. 


562 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Pottery  did  not  develop  as  it  did,  for  example,  in  Greece, 
because  Assyria  was  not  so  poor  and  so  limited  in  materials; 
indeed,  in  historical  times  it  was  almost  entirely  supplanted 
by  the  metals  and  the  various  stones  for  all  but  the  commonest 
uses.  At  the  very  doors  of  Nineveh  alabaster  could  be  had 
for  the  digging,  and  was  easily  worked  when  newly  excavated. 
Passed  through  the  skilful  hands  of  the  craftsman,  it  appeared 
in  most  attractive  form  and  with  the  most  beautiful  trans- 
lucence.  A  glimpse  of  the  elaborate  drinking-cups  in  the  ban- 


Fig.  161.  CARVED  IVORY  IN  THE  EGYPTIAN  STYLE. 


queting  scenes  at  Dur  Sharrukin  will  show  why  the  highest 
art  of  the  craftsman  was  not  lavished  on  vases,  and  how  the 
Greeks  imitated  the  metal  rhytons  in  the  less  expensive  clay. 
Pottery  found  another  rival  in  glass,  which  had  been  imported 
from  Egypt.  Its  perishable  nature  has  permitted  few  examples 
to  survive  entire,  but  one  glass  jar  from  Kalhu  has  long  been 
famous  because,  in  addition  to  a  lion,  it  bears  the  name  of 
Sargon  in  cuneiform. 

Doubtless  a  large  part  of  the  bazaars  was  filled  with 
weapons,  but  the  ceremonial  sword  of  Adad-nirari  I  is  our 
one  first-class  example  of  the  armourer’s  art.  For  the  rest, 
we  must  go  to  the  sculptures  or  to  the  elaborate  account  of 
the  chased  and  inlaid  weapons  Sargon  found  in  Musasir.1  Here 

1  Cf.  p.  239. 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


563 


too  we  may  make  mention  of  the  inlaid  ivories,  with  their 
mingling  of  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  motifs.1 

No  great  step  was  felt  by  the  Assyrian  to  be  taken  when  one 
passed  from  the  crafts  to  what  we  should  call  the  arts.  He 
considered  the  architect  or  the  sculptor  as  much  a  craftsman 
as  the  shoemaker  or  potter,  and  not  one  enjoyed  a  high  posi¬ 
tion  in  society.  None  the  less,  through  their  honest  crafts¬ 
manship  these  unknown  artists  produced  results  which  to¬ 
day  challenge  our  admiration. 

Servile  copying  of  Babylonia  is  an  oft-repeated  reproach; 
it  is  never  more  false  than  in  the  fundamental  art,  that  of  archi¬ 
tecture.  Babylonian  foundations  there  were,  to  be  sure,  but 
not  to  the  extent  assumed.  A  very  peculiar  condition  of  affairs 
has  lessened  the  fame  of  Assyria  in  this  respect,  the  fact  that 
so  much  more  is  known  of  Assyrian  than  of  Babylonian  archi¬ 
tecture  !  Since  both  used  mud  brick  to  so  great  an  extent,  and 
burned  brick  to  a  lesser  degree,  it  was  perfectly  natural  to  as¬ 
sume  that  the  Assyrian  technic  would  be  found  in  Babylonia 
when  it  had  been  as  fully  excavated  as  Assyria. 

Even  yet,  we  know  too  little  of  Babylonian  architecture 
to  make  comparison  with  the  Assyrian  entirely  safe.  Virtually 
the  only  city  of  the  alluvium  which  has  been  adequately  laid 
bare  is  the  Babylon  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  By  that  time  As¬ 
syrian  kings  had  built  for  almost  a  thousand  years  in  Baby¬ 
lonia,  and  we  have  repeated  accounts  of  temples,  palaces, 
roads  which  they  constructed.  Much  as  the  Assyrians  learned 
in  the  process,  it  is  unthinkable  that  Babylonians  learned 
nothing  in  return,  conservative  as  their  temperament  had  be¬ 
come.  Many  of  the  elements  in  the  Babylon  of  Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar  point  to  foreign  influence. 

Babylonia  built  her  cities  of  mud  bricks,  that  is,  of  care¬ 
fully  worked  clay  pressed  in  moulds,  sometimes  with  a  little 
chopped  straw  to  hold  them  together,  and  then  baked  in  the 
midday  sun.  Bricks  were  usually  laid  while  still  soft  and  made 
a  solid  mass,  bound  together,  if  at  all,  with  a  thin  wash  of  the 

1  For  the  first  half  of  the  chapter,  cf.  especially  B.  Meissner,  Babylonien  und 
Assyrien,  1920. 


564 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


same  mud  that  formed  the  main  body.  Burnt  bricks  were  in 
use  from  very  early  date,  and  then  bitumen  might  be  employed 
as  mortar,  but  the  difficulty  of  securing  wood  for  burning  made 
burnt  bricks  rare.  There  was  never  a  real  foundation,  and  the 
walls  were  of  necessity  thick  to  support  the  huge  mass  of  the 
crude  mud.  Stone  to  face  the  walls  was  all  but  unknown. 

The  Assyrians  took  over  the  mud  technic.  This  has  regu¬ 
larly  been  cited  as  sufficient  proof  of  Assyrian  lack  of  orig¬ 
inality.  Such  an  argument  is  absurd,  for  at  all  times  and  in 
all  portions  of  the  Near  East  the  majority  of  buildings  have 
been  erected  of  mud  brick.  Who,  for  example,  does  not  re¬ 
call  the  mud  city  walls  of  early  Athens? 

Ashur  was  not  particularly  well  placed  for  the  use  of  stone. 
The  surrounding  conglomerate  was  not  adapted  for  building, 
and  methods  for  transport  of  huge  masses  of  stone  were  not 
to  be  derived  from  Babylonia;  they  must  be  invented  or  im¬ 
ported  from  Syria  or  Asia  Minor  or  Egypt.  As  illustration, 
the  sandstones  employed  in  Eridu  came  from  nearer  home 
than  the  limestones  used  in  Nineveh.  Mud  brick,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  as  near  Ashur  as  Babylon,  that  is,  one  had  only  to 
go  to  the  clayey  fields.  No  difficult  problems  of  transporta¬ 
tion,  no  unmanageable  masses,  need  be  here  considered.  Build¬ 
ing  material  cost  nothing  but  the  labour  of  carrying,  and  the 
most  inexperienced  slave,  incapable  of  higher  thought,  could 
be  trained  in  an  hour  to  turn  out  quantities  limited  only  by 
his  physical  strength.  With  the  huge  masses  of  captive  labour 
at  the  disposal  of  an  Assyrian  king,  there  was  every  induce¬ 
ment  to  use  crude  brick.  Further  encouragement  for  its  em¬ 
ployment  came  from  the  intense  heat,  little  less  about  Ashur 
than  in  the  alluvium,  for  crude  brick  is  simply  earth,  and  earth 
is  the  ideal  non-conductor. 

While  the  Assyrians  did  cling  to  the  use  of  crude  brick  as 
material  for  the  mounds  on  which  their  structures  were  erected 
and  for  the  walls  of  the  buildings  themselves,  they  utilised 
stone  to  a  degree  undreamed  in  the  south.  Their  military 
sense  taught  them  what  it  took  centuries  to  teach  the  Greek, 
that  city  walls  of  mud  were  at  the  mercy  of  any  invader  who 


Fig.  165.  TERRA-COTTA  Fig.  166.  BRONZE  BRACELET. 

ANTEFIX  TO  BUILDING.  (Louvre.) 

(Louvre.) 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


565 


could  direct  a  stream  against  them,  and  that  they  were  easily 
breached  with  the  newly  invented  artillery.  Reproach  for 
mere  imitation  must  hesitate  in  the  presence  of  the  massive 
stone  circumvallation,  later  imitated  by  Nebuchadnezzar  in 
Babylon.  Nor  was  it  imitation  which  produced  the  dado  of 
sculptured  reliefs  which  would  not  have  been  preserved  for 
the  modern  objector  had  they  not  been  covered  by  the  ruins 
of  the  same  mud-brick  walls. 

Two  remarkable  discoveries,  the  arch  and  its  natural  de¬ 
velopment,  the  dome,  had  been  made  in  Babylonia;  as  in  the 
case  of  so  many  inventions,  it  was  a  new  country  which  made 
them  its  own.  The  arch  was  regularly  used  in  underground 
drains  which  displayed  a  sense  for  the  need  of  sanitation  not 
again  met  until  we  come  to  Rome.  It  was  also  used  in  the 
burial-vault.  The  direct  ancestor  of  the  Roman  triumphal 
arch  is  the  triple-arched  gateway  of  the  Assyrian  palace.  As 
for  the  dome,  it  would  appear  to  have  been  everywhere  in 
Assyria,  as  it  is  in  the  present-day  Orient,  while  the  transi¬ 
tional  form  between  arch  and  dome,  the  barrel  vault,  covered 
many  of  the  long,  narrow  rooms. 

Assyrian  reliefs  furnish  some  of  our  best  evidence  for  the 
early  use  of  the  column,  but  in  virtually  every  instance  they 
represent  a  foreign  scene  or  an  imported  building.  Egypt 
was  doubtless  its  inventor,  and  early  examples  from  Babylonia 
are  entirely  lacking.  At  least  as  early  as  the  first  Tiglath  Pi- 
leser,  we  find  polygonal  columns  in  basalt  with  capitals  which 
are  as  original  as  they  are  ugly.  Later,  we  find  bases  of  stone 
and  beautifully  modelled,  and  at  times  winged  lions  were  used 
for  that  purpose,  while  the  columns  were  of  wood,  as  they  are 
in  the  houses  of  Assyria  at  the  present.  All  in  all,  however, 
the  column  was  a  foreign  device  which  was  never  fully  natu¬ 
ralised.  Assyria  used  it  sparingly,  save  in  the  imported  bit 
hilani  of  the  Hittites. 

Modern  students  of  art  who  attempt  an  understanding  of 
Assyrian  aesthetics  suffer  from  severe  limitations.  Art  does 
not  speak  the  same  language  throughout  the  ages.  Its  pur¬ 
pose  is  not  primarily  to  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,  rather  it 


566 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


attempts  to  afford  aesthetic  satisfaction  through  the  medium 
of  convention.  The  modern  critic  looks  on  art  with  eyes  trained 
to  Greek  convention,  or,  to  put  it  more  accurately,  what  our 
ancestors  believed  to  be  Greek  convention.  Now  it  is  true 
that  Greek  art  was  based  on  the  art  of  the  earlier  Orient,  that 
it  used  much  the  same  technical  methods,  and  that  it  was 
never  free  from  some  indication  of  such  influence;  it  is  even 
truer  that  from  its  earliest  Minoan  forms  the  spirit  of  Greek 
art  was  a  thing  apart,  and  this  spirit  quickly  showed  itself  in 
new  conventions. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  our  study,  then,  we  must  free  our¬ 
selves  as  far  as  may  be  possible  of  these  preconceptions  as  to 
what  true  art  must  be.  The  last  century  has  seen  a  more  sym¬ 
pathetic  study  of  such  art  as  is  not  influenced  to  any  degree 
by  Greek  convention,  Chinese,  Japanese,  or  Muslim,  and  we 
have  even  come  to  appreciate  the  folk  art  of  lower-class  Eu¬ 
rope  or  the  primitive  art  of  less-cultured  peoples,  but  in  spite 
of  these  concessions  to  a  broader  aesthetics,  it  is  not  an  easy 
matter  for  us  to  look  upon  Assyrian  art  with  the  same  eyes  as 
those  of  the  men  who  rejoiced  in  its  beauties. 

Assyrian  art  was  folk  art,  that  is,  it  was  nationalistic,  and 
that  in  turn  means  that  it  was  not  the  art  of  individuals.  For 
twenty-five  centuries,  the  study  of  art  has  been  dominated  by 
the  idea  of  the  “ masters,”  individuals  who  lived  a  definite 
personal  life  of  which  we  may  learn  many  intimate  details, 
and  who  made  a  definite,  personal  contribution  to  its  develop¬ 
ment.  Such  a  state  cannot  be  reached  until  there  has  been  a 
long  period  of  folk  art,  and  it  is  to  this  period  of  folk  art,  well 
towards  its  end,  that  Assyrian  art  must  be  assigned. 

Continuity  is  the  outstanding  factor  in  such  folk  art.  Freed 
from  the  disturbing  influence  of  the  individual  genius,  it  passes 
through  a  normal  development  with  few  marked  epochs.  Its 
greatest  devotees  have  no  social  standing,  and  such  an  atmos¬ 
phere  is  not  conducive  to  variation.  A  high-class  artisan  will 
feel  it  his  business  to  reproduce  the  best  in  the  ages  gone  be¬ 
fore,  not  to  invent  new  ideas  or  new  processes.  A  national 
art  which  transcends  these  limitations,  which  avoids  the 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


567 


ever-present  danger  of  stagnation  and  overconventionalisation, 
which  is  most  lifelike  in  its  latest  stage — such  an  art  possesses 
a  vitality  which  cannot  but  awaken  our  admiration. 

Assyrian  art  may  be  based  on  that  of  Babylonia,  but  it 
breathes  a  spirit  as  different  as  that  of  Greece.  Early  Shume- 
rian  art  is  simply  hopeless.  The  typical  Lagash  sculptures, 
whether  we  consider  the  Vulture  Stele  of  Eannatum  or  the 
statues  in  the  round  of  Gudea,  are  so  inferior  in  execution  to 
those  of  contemporary  Egypt  that  their  inferiority  must  be 
explained,  not  by  a  lack  of  technic  which  might  have  easily 
been  learned  on  the  Nile,  but  by  simple  lack  of  an  artistic 
soul.  That  it  was  not  lack  of  technical  resources  is  shown  by 
the  sudden  bloom  when  the  Sargonid  dynasty  won  Babylonia, 
and  these  Semites,  not  too  distantly  separated  in  race  from 
the  later  Assyrians,  produced  the  magnificent  stele  of  Naram 
Sin  or  the  lovely  seal  cylinders  whose  mature  beauty  is  in  such 
contrast  to  the  conventionalised  line-drawings  of  a  few  gener¬ 
ations  before. 

At  first  sight,  the  earliest  sculptures  found  at  Ashur  are  pure 
Shumerian.  Sitting  figures  remind  one  of  the  Gudea  statues 
from  Lagash,  standing  ones  of  Lugal-dalu  from  Adab.  The 
ordinary  dress  is  the  flounced  skirt  leaving  the  upper  half  of 
the  body  nude,  in  general  face  and  head  are  shaven,  the  body 
is  short  and  stumpy.  Closer  examination  shows  peculiarities 
in  countenance,  in  method  of  treating  the  hair,  even  to  full 
beard  for  the  men  and  massed  hair  for  the  women,  fashions  in 
dress  which  are  not  found  in  the  south.  But  it  is  a  very  seri¬ 
ous  question  if  any  artistic  influences  survived  the  bloody 
downfall  of  the  men  who  are  represented  in  these  statues. 

After  a  long  period  of  artistic  inactivity,  sculptures  begin 
to  appear  once  more.  A  new  race  was  now  settled  at  Ashur 
and  their  art  was  their  own.  The  few  remains  from  before 
the  time  of  Tiglath  Pileser  I  are  only  too  fragmentary,  but 
they  suffice.  A  headless  statue,  doubtless  of  some  monarch 
from  the  middle  of  the  second  millennium,  stands  in  sharp 
contrast  to  those  of  the  “ Shumerian”  period.  Its  proportions 
are  more  normal,  the  almost  grotesquely  squat  bodies  of  a  thou- 


568 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


sand  years  earlier  contrast  with  its  well-built  solidity,  the  arm 
muscles  are  not  fat  ahnost  to  the  point  of  dropsy  but  are  heavily 
muscled,  it  is  evidently  a  portrait  of  a  rather  heavily  built 
but  well-proportioned  man  of  medium  height.  His  head  is 
missing  but  his  long  beard  falls  to  his  breast,  he  wears  a  neck¬ 
lace  around  his  short  neck,  his  hands  are  folded  one  above 
the  other,  a  simple,  heavy  robe  completely  envelops  his  lower 
body,  so  that  not  one  bit  of  the  flesh  appears.  A  nude  figure 
of  Ishtar  which  bears  the  dedication  of  Ashur-bel-kala  has 
lost  head,  arms,  and  feet,  but  in  spite  of  the  rough  modelling 
is  a  not  inadequate  representation  of  a  woman  of  the  same 
muscular  type.  It  is  already  evident  that  the  Assyrians  did 
not  overemphasise  muscular  development  because  of  any  idea 
of  greater  power — they  simply  presented  their  men  and  women 
as  they  were. 

The  art  was  in  full  development  by  the  reign  of  Tiglath 
Pileser  I,  whose  obelisk  relief,  rock-cut  royal  figure,  and  palace- 
entrance  animals  already  show  all  the  chief  peculiarities  of 
the  later  centuries.  Its  first  bloom  is  in  the  ninth  century. 
The  splendid  reliefs  of  Ashur-nasir-apal,  the  somewhat  less 
impressive  figures  in  the  round  of  that  monarch  and  of  his 
successor  Shalmaneser  III,  the  bronze  gates,  the  work  in 
faience,  all  testify  to  an  art  which  leaves  little  to  be  desired 
for  architectural  effect,  once  we  have  admitted  convention 
which  appeared  nature  itself  to  contemporaries. 

Political  decay  in  the  next  century  resulted  quite  naturally 
in  artistic  decadence,  and  the  few  reliefs  of  the  last  Tiglath 
Pileser  are  in  many  respects  inferior  to  those  of  Ashur-nasir- 
apal,  though  a  certain  realism  quite  in  accordance  with  his 
nature  is  to  be  noted.  Sargon’s  sculptures  may  be  more  con¬ 
ventional  but  they  are  marked  by  a  perfection  of  finish.  Real¬ 
ism  returns  with  Sennacherib.  A  greater  use  of  background, 
a  careful  utilisation  of  preliminary  sketches  to  secure  accurate 
local  colour,  the  constant  contrast  of  scenes  from  every-day 
life  with  scenes  of  cruelty  and  horror,  the  beginnings  of  per¬ 
spective  when  the  figures  in  the  background  are  smaller  than 
those  in  front — all  these  mark  distinct  advance. 


Fig.  167.  PHIENICIAN  SHIELD  FOUND  IN  CRETE,  EGYPTIAN  DESIGN 


' 

* 


' 


' 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


569 


Highest  excellence  is  reached  with  the  sculptures  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal.  Details  are  even  more  emphasised  than  in  the  case 
of  Sennacherib,  and  where  his  reliefs  may  be  compared  side 
by  side  with  those  in  Sennacherib’s  palace,  the  finish  is  seen 
to  be  superior.  More  ambitious  compositions  were  attempted, 
and  the  grouping  of  the  lion-hunt  produced  a  masterpiece 
whose  full  effect  has  been  lost  by  the  scattering  of  the  slabs. 
In  the  animal  figures,  and  the  lions  in  particular,  Assyrian  art 
gave  its  finest  to  the  ancient  world,  and  their  influence  was 
felt  as  far  west  as  Greece.  The  sudden  crash  of  the  empire 
allowed  no  opportunity  for  decline,  and  Assyrian  art  was 
snuffed  out  in  its  prime.  Much  of  the  virility  of  Chaldsean 
art,  still  more  of  the  Persian,  something  even  of  the  Greek, 
came  from  the  art  of  Assyria. 

Artistically,  the  Assyrian  period  is  the  era  of  sculpture,  but 
in  making  an  estimate  we  must  never  forget  that  virtually 
all  sculpture  was  used  for  architectural  effect,  rather  than 
by  and  for  itself.  Nor  must  we  forget  the  part  played  by 
colour.  The  material  available  for  the  sculptures,  a  gypseous 
alabaster  with  a  uniform,  rather  dirty  gray,  left  much  to  be 
desired.  Details  were  picked  out  in  colour.  It  is  not  certain 
whether  the  earlier  reliefs  were  entirely  polychrome,  for  no 
traces  have  been  found  on  the  background,  but  only  on  the 
hair,  eyes,  and  sandals;  in  the  time  of  Sargon,  the  background 
was  a  light-yellow  ochre,  reds  and  blues  were  especially  be¬ 
loved,  and  the  brighter  the  better. 

Above  the  dado  of  sculptured  slabs,  six  to  eight  feet  high, 
were  plastered  walls  painted  in  tempera.  As  seen  by  the  ex¬ 
cavators,  the  colours  were  still  bright,  but  they  quickly  faded 
on  exposure  to  the  air,  and  the  unstable  backing  of  mud  brick 
contributed  to  their  destruction.  The  colours  have  been  ana¬ 
lysed:  the  white  was  tin  oxide,  the  yellow — Naples  yellow  it 
would  be  called  nowadays — was  an  antimonate  of  lead  with 
some  tin,  the  blue  was  copper  oxide,  the  greens  came  from 
the  same  source,  the  dark  brown  was  an  iron,  and  the  red  was 
a  suboxide  of  copper.  Numerous  and  elaborate  as  were  the 
frescos,  they  were,  in  general,  designs  rather  than  figures  or 


570 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


scenes.  Dados  of  black,  horizontal  bands  of  various  colours, 
rosettes  or  other  floral  subjects  were  on  the  walls  where  there 
were  no  sculptured  reliefs.  More  rarely  we  find  such  a  group¬ 
ing  as  that  of  two  white  bulls,  traced  in  black  on  a  yellow 
ground  with  dark-blue  decorations  above,  or  a  blue  bull  with 
eagle’s  wings.  One  composition  was  still  more  elaborate,  a 
richly  decorated  horse  with  attendants  which  came  from  Dur 
Sharrukin. 

After  all,  the  traveller  who  knows  his  present-day  Orient 
will  not  look  for  the  best  colour-effects  in  painting.  Tiling 
has  always  been  one  of  the  best-known  products  of  the  Near 
East.  Our  first  examples  date  from  Ashur-nasir-apal,  when 
we  have  captives  in  yellow  tunics,  blue  overgarments,  and 
white  fringes  outlined  in  black  on  a  yellow  ground,  or  guil- 
loches  in  red  and  blue  with  white  borders  and  black-and-white 
centres,  between  alternate  palm-cones,  palmettos,  and  pome¬ 
granates  in  red,  white,  and  blue,  in  black  and  yellow.  The 
highly  elaborate  design  of  his  son  Shalmaneser  III  receiving 
his  commander-in-chief  has  already  been  described  in  detail. 

The  greater  portion  of  the  tile-work  belongs  to  the  period 
of  the  Sargonids.  To  Sargon  himself  belong  the  Dur  Shar¬ 
rukin  representations.  Here  the  ground  is  regularly  blue, 
while  the  figures  are  in  yellow,  for  since  their  purpose  was 
primarily  architectural,  no  attempt  was  made  to  represent 
the  figures  in  the  colours  of  life.  White  rosettes  with  raised 
centres  mark  the  beginning  of  the  technic  which  was  to  culmi¬ 
nate  in  the  raised  bricks  of  the  Chaldsean  period.  Blue,  yel¬ 
low,  and  white  were  the  colours  most  beloved  by  Sargon’s 
architects,  though  we  find  green  employed  for  the  leaves  of 
the  trees  and  part  of  the  head-dress.  Red  also  is  rare,  but  ap¬ 
pears  in  one  brilliant  tile,  two  white-faced  men,  with  a  horse’s 
head  and  elaborate  trappings  between,  on  a  green  ground, 
and  above  a  complicated  design  in  which  red,  white,  green, 
and  yellow  appear  in  turn. 

A  few  fragments  dating  probably  from  the  reign  of  Sennache¬ 
rib  complete  the  collection.  On  a  pale-yellow  ground  appear 
yellow  captives  with  shaven  heads  and  necks  roped  together; 


THE  ARTS  AND  LIFE 


571 


two  of  them  wear  white  loin-cloths,  two  long  white  garments, 
open  down  the  front.  Again,  two  blue  horses  are  depicted 
on  an  olive-green  background,  and  an  Assyrian  soldier  is  seen 
with  an  enemy,  armed  still  with  a  dagger  but  wounded,  who 
is  clad  only  in  a  blue  loin-cloth.  A  third  presents  yellow  horses 
with  blue  harness  on  an  olive-green  ground.  An  enemy  with 
white  loin-cloth  is  shot  by  two  arrows  and  a  white  scaled  fish 
in  blue  swims  in  yellow  water.  Another  enemy,  naked  save 
for  fillet  and  feather,  is  pierced  in  the  neck  by  an  arrow,  while 
blue  horses  hitched  with  white  harness  to  a  yellow  chariot 
pass  over  the  foe.  Two  soldiers  with  yellow  helmets  and  shields 
of  blue  edged  with  yellow  and  blue  squares  have  their  faces 
outlined  in  white  with  the  olive-green  of  the  background  show¬ 
ing  through.1 

Metal-working  was  likewise  a  highly  developed  art.  From 
the  most  archaic  period  we  have  a  female  statuette  in  bronze, 
her  close-fitting  clothes  draped  over  her  left  shoulder,  with 
an  elaborate  mass  of  hair  looped  from  her  crown  to  her  neck. 
Ashur-nasir-apal  has  left  us  fragments  of  bronze  repousse 
work  on  the  hinges  of  the  great  palace  door,  and  his  son  Shal¬ 
maneser  III  enlivened  the  record  of  his  conquests  with  nu¬ 
merous  scenes  in  the  same  fashion.  Sargon,  too,  employed 
this  form  of  decoration.  Bits  of  the  bronze-work  from  the 
throne  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  show  winged  lions  and  bulls,  or 
deities  before  the  sacred  tree.  Lion  weights  from  the  time 
of  Shalmaneser  V  to  that  of  Sennacherib  illustrate  an  interest¬ 
ing  development  in  style.  Bronze  bowls  from  Kalhu  show 
much  the  same  fusion  of  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  motifs  as  the 
Cretan  shields  from  the  same  period  which  are  generally  at¬ 
tributed  to  the  Phoenicians.  But  a  small  part  of  the  metal 
wealth  of  Assyria  has  survived  the  repeated  plunderings  of 
the  capitals;  only  when  we  read  the  accounts  of  the  annals, 
such  as  the  inventions  of  Sennacherib,  the  list  Sargon  gives 
of  the  metallic  booty  from  Musasir,  do  we  gain  a  fair  idea  of 
the  high  state  of  metallurgy. 

Still  less  has  been  preserved  of  the  precious  metals.  Plates 

1  Cf.  Handcock,  Mesopotamian  Archaeology,  281  f. 


572 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  gold  placed  under  foundations  and  with  cuneiform  inscrip¬ 
tions  are  now  known  in  considerable  numbers,  a  huge  thun¬ 
derbolt  in  gold  over  a  wooden  core  which  once  was  held  by 
Adad  hints  at  the  glitter  of  the  divine  statues  and  of  their 
homes,  earrings  and  amulets  in  the  same  precious  metal  have 
been  seen  in  the  hands  of  the  dealers.  For  ornaments,  how¬ 
ever,  we  must  in  general  go  to  the  sculptures,  where  we  are 
fairly  bewildered  by  the  number  of  earrings,  necklaces,  pen¬ 
dants,  rings,  bracelets,  worn  by  the  king  and  the  higher  offi¬ 
cials.  Such  ornaments  as  have  survived  are  mostly  of  the 
less-precious  stones.  Richly  carved  cylinder  seals  were  still 
hung  around  the  necks  of  men  until  they  were  needed  to  au¬ 
thenticate  their  business  agreements,  though  the  stamp  seal 
was  already  in  use.  Agates,  garnets,  and  the  like  appear  fairly 
frequently,  and  even  amber  had  travelled  the  long  route  from 
the  Baltic.  Poorer  people  must  content  themselves  with  shells 
or  with  beads  from  glass  paste  which  is  found  in  the  earliest 
graves  in  Ashur.  But  it  is  a  poor  selection  of  what  was  once 
in  the  Assyrian  palaces. 


CHAPTER  X L I V 


THE  REED  STYLUS  OF  THE  SCRIBE 

Six  thousand  years  ago  the  Shumerians  in  Elam  drew  crude 
pictographs  roughly  similar  to  those  just  coming  into  use  among 
their  distant  neighbours  of  Egypt.  The  Shumerian  language 
was  agglutinative,  that  is,  in  structure  it  was  somewhat  similar 
to  the  modern  Turkish,  with  each  separate  element  a  single 
syllable;  it  was  therefore  not  difficult  to  adjust  a  given  pic- 
tograph  to  the  verbal  form  or  to  another  grammatical  element 
of  similar  sound. 

A  little  of  the  pictured  original  survived  to  the  earliest  known 
inscriptions,  and  sample  characters  of  still  more  primitive  ap¬ 
pearance  were  preserved  through  the  curiosity  of  later-day 
scholars.  Unlike  the  Egyptians,  the  inhabitants  of  Elam  had 
already  passed  beyond  the  pictographic  stage  when  they 
entered  the  Tigris-Euphrates  region. 

The  next  stage  was  the  linear,  when  simple  lines  were  cut 
on  the  stone  records  of  the  early  monarchs  and  the  few  busi¬ 
ness  documents  might  be  incised  on  flat  stone  tablets.  By 
this  time,  the  great  majority  of  the  signs  had  forever  lost  any 
resemblance  to  the  objects  commemorated  and  had  become 
arbitrary  symbols.  As  the  use  of  writing  became  more  widely 
spread,  stone  proved  insufficient  in  quantity;  Babylonia  had 
only  mud  as  a  substitute,  but  certain  layers  of  the  mud  fur¬ 
nished  the  finest  of  clay  for  the  potter  and  brick-maker.  A 
genial  thought  of  some  scribe  led  to  the  use  of  this  clay  in  the 
place  of  the  less-convenient  and  scarcer  stone. 

Experience  soon  showed  that  straight  lines  pulled  up  the 
clay  in  inconvenient  ridges;  another  genial  idea  was  the  use 
of  a  reed  stylus.  Instead  of  a  character  formed  by  a  single 
pull  of  the  implement,  there  was  a  series  of  short  lines  stamped 
into  the  moistened  clay.  The  stylus  was  of  wood,  about  the 
size  of  a  small  pencil,  with  four  flat  sides  and  with  one  end 

573 


574 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


bevelled.  This  was  pressed  gently  into  the  clay,  one  end  sinking 
more  deeply  than  the  other,  and  thus  there  was  made  the  wedge 
from  which  the  writing  secured  the  name  of  cuneiform.  The 
stylus  was  laid  down  on  the  sharp  edge.  If  the  tip  was  de¬ 
pressed  deeply,  a  short,  deep,  broad  character,  a  true  wedge, 
was  formed;  if  laid  lightly,  a  long,  narrow  line  was  the  result. 
A  large  number  of  these  short  strokes  was  needed  to  represent 
a  single  sign.  Economy  of  effort  soon  lessened  the  number  of 
such  strokes,  the  last  remnants  of  picture-writing  disappeared, 
and  the  signs  became  purely  conventional. 

No  system  of  writing  was  possessed  by  the  Semites.  As 
they  began  to  veneer  themselves  with  the  superior  civilisation 
of  their  neighbours,  they  wrote  in  their  language,  but  Ak¬ 
kadian  was  an  inflected  language  like  our  own,  Shumerian  an 
agglutinative  language,  imperfectly  understood  in  its  finer 
details,  and  it  needed  only  the  Sargonid  supremacy  to  adapt 
the  signs  to  the  language  of  the  conquerors. 

The  difficulty  of  the  task  and  the  imperfectness  of  the  fit 
may  be  imagined.  Large  numbers  of  the  signs  had  been  used 
to  represent  objects  or  ideas;  these  were  taken  over  en  bloc, 
but  read  with  their  Semitic  translation.  Thus  were  formed 
the  ideographs.  Certain  of  the  signs  had  already  been  used 
as  simple  syllables,  free  from  any  relation  to  their  original 
meaning  as  pictographs.  All  these  were  accepted,  and  to  this 
already  long  list  of  values  was  added  the  Shumerian  pronun¬ 
ciation  of  the  more  important  of  the  ideographs.  Certain  of 
the  ideographs  were  likewise  used  for  determinatives,  the  up¬ 
right  wedge  was  placed  before  the  name  of  the  man,  another 
sign  stood  before  that  of  a  woman,  the  star,  still  recognisable 
as  such,  indicated  that  the  name  of  a  deity  followed. 

A  rather  elaborate  literature  had  already  been  produced 
by  the  Shumerians.  Records  of  the  kings  were  brief,  the  praise 
of  a  god,  a  mere  reference  to  conquests,  a  somewhat  fuller  de¬ 
scription  of  the  building.  Letters  were  not  infrequent  and 
business  records  were  a  commonplace.  Pure  literature  in  our 
sense  did  not  exist;  the  nearest  approach  was  found  in  the 
religious  writings,  a  hymn  of  praise  to  a  god  who  must  be  con- 


Fig.  169.  CYLINDER  OF  ESARHADDON.  (Yale  Babylonian  Collection.) 


Fig.  170.  LATE  COPY  OF  THE  EARLIER  PICTOGRAPHS  FROM  WHICH 
DEVELOPED  THE  CUNEIFORM  WRITING. 


THE  REED  STYLUS  OF  THE  SCRIBE 


575 


ciliated,  an  incantation  to  drive  away  sickness.  A  few  legends 
glorified  the  gods  and  answered  such  questions  as  how  the 
universe  came  into  being  or  attempted  to  satisfy  the  first  specu¬ 
lations  as  to  the  entrance  of  evil  into  the  world. 

Each  city  praised  its  local  god  in  this  literature,  and  there 
were  as  many  different  creation  stories  and  creating  deities 
as  there  were  independent  city-states.  Most  prominent  was 
Eridu,  on  a  branch  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  whose  god  Enki  was 
ruler  of  the  great  abyss.  His  was  the  knowledge  by  which 
the  evil  spirits  might  be  put  to  rout,  in  his  honour  was  penned 
the  prototype  of  the  Hebrew  Job.  By  the  date  of  our  first 
preserved  records,  the  supremacy  of  Eridu  was  in  the  dim 
past,  but  traces  of  her  influence  are  to  be  found  throughout 
the  whole  later  literature,  and  even  the  Greeks  remembered 
how  it  was  Cannes  coming  from  the  sea  who  gave  Babylonia 
its  first  wisdom. 

Also  in  times  before  written  record  was  the  political  su¬ 
premacy  of  Nippur,  whose  god  Enlil  through  his  divine 
“Word”  gave  the  right  to  rule  the  alluvium  to  our  oldest 
known  conquerors.  For  a  thousand  years,  Enlil  remained 
the  “lord”  of  Babylonia,  in  spite  of  changing  dynasties.  Anu, 
the  sky-god,  through  the  temporary  supremacy  of  Uruk,  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  pantheon,  but  he  always  remained 
far  distant  from  the  thoughts  of  the  average  Babylonian,  and 
the  accession  of  the  Sargonids  found  Enlil  still  the  real  ruler 
of  the  country. 

A  Shumerian  reaction  brought  the  dynasty  of  Ur  into  power, 
and  a  perfect  Renaissance  of  Shumerian  literature  ensued. 
To  this  period,  in  fact,  may  be  traced  the  earliest  surviving 
edition  of  many  of  the  most  important  works.  Then  came  the 
invasion  of  the  west  Semites,  and  the  Semitic  Akkadian  be¬ 
came  supreme. 

Hammurabi  and  his  colleagues  brought  about  the  greatest 
change  in  the  history  of  Babylonian  literature,  the  change  from 
Shumerian  to  Akkadian;  as,  for  instance,  when  he  wrote  down 
the  laws  in  the  tongue  of  the  land.  Shumerian  still  remained 
the  sacred  language,  somewhat  as  was  Latin  in  the  Middle 


576 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Ages  of  Europe,  and  royal  inscriptions  placed  it  side  by  side 
with  Akkadian.  Shumerian  formulas  were  retained  in  the 
business  documents  as  Latin  of  a  legal  character  is  used  to¬ 
day,  until  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  say  whether  a  particular 
document  is  written  in  one  or  the  other  language. 

This  is  the  great  age  of  translation.  Huge  dictionaries, 
the  so-called  “  syllabaries,”  were  prepared  for  the  aid  of  the 
translators,  and  they  have  made  possible  for  us  the  decipher¬ 
ment  of  the  older  language.  Formal  grammar  was  far  in  the 
future,  but  phrase-books  afforded  a  control  of  the  various  forms. 
Sometimes  translations  were  given  by  themselves,  at  others 
we  have  interlinear  “ trots”  which  are  not  always  more  accurate 
than  those  used  by  the  lazy  student  of  to-day.  The  genius 
of  the  Shumerian  was  quite  different  from  the  Akkadian,  and 
the  more  advanced  insight  of  a  scientific  philology  often  shows 
complete  failure  to  grasp  the  finer  distinctions. 

No  ancient  scribe  could  be  trusted  to  make  a  straight  copy. 
Aside  from  mistranslations,  of  which  there  are  sufficient,  he 
must  adapt  his  text  to  the  new  political  and  religious  condi¬ 
tions.  The  rulers  of  the  first  dynasty  of  Babylon  had  a  some¬ 
what  perverted  patriotism  which  insisted  that  all  literature 
should  celebrate  the  glory  of  their  city  and  of  their  city-god 
Marduk.  Originally  a  minor  solar  deity,  he  was  made  the 
“ father  of  all  the  gods.” 

The  most  famous  of  the  creation  stories,  that  of  Nippur, 
honoured  Enlil.  His  honour  was  rudely  taken  from  him  and 
handed  over  to  Marduk;  this  required  explanation,  and  the 
legend  in  its  latest  form  told  in  detail  the  manner  in  which 
Enlil,  after  the  other  gods  had  refused  the  perilous  task,  as¬ 
signed  to  Marduk  the  destruction  of  Tiamat,  the  chaos 
monster.  Quite  naturally,  it  was  Marduk  who  completed  the 
work  of  creation.  Incantations,  too,  were  to  be  said  in  the 
name  of  Marduk,  though  the  Babylonian  must  always  go  to 
Ea,  the  successor  of  Enki  of  Eridu,  for  the  exact  prescription. 

In  the  midst  of  this  glorification  of  Marduk,  the  Assyrians 
slipped  away  from  southern  control.  In  their  minds,  there¬ 
fore,  Marduk  remained  the  chief  divinity  of  the  alluvium  and 


THE  REED  STYLUS  OF  THE  SCRIBE 


577 


Babylon  was  the  chief  city.  Such  literature  as  they  had  known 
was  in  the  version  which  honoured  Marduk.  The  result  to 
literature  was  no  less  important  than  it  was  to  political  theory. 

Assyria  took  over  the  signs  in  use  under  Hammurabi.  Al¬ 
ready  they  had  been  somewhat  reduced  in  number  and  in 
complexity,  and  the  process  continued  in  the  new  state,  but 
the  Assyrians  were  less  business  men,  their  scribes  were  less 
in  a  hurry,  their  minds  were  more  conservative  along  certain 
lines,  and  soon  their  forms  were  more  complex  than  those  used 
by  the  Babylonian  merchant  in  his  daily  transactions. 

The  Assyrian  language  was  a  near  neighbour  of  the 
Akkadian  but  not  a  mere  dialect.  There  were  important 
phonetic  differences;  for  instance,  when  an  Assyrian  wished 
to  say  “from”  he  used  ishtu  instead  of  ultu.  Differences  in 
vocabulary  were  marked  and  the  syntax  was  not  always  quite 
the  same.  The  differences  were  something  like  those  between 
English  and  Dutch.  The  average  Assyrian  could  read  Baby¬ 
lonian  without  much  difficulty,  though  Ashur-bani-apal  found 
it  as  necessary  to  have  special  instruction  in  Akkadian  as  in 
Shumerian. 

Good  honest  Assyrian  was  the  language  of  every-day  life; 
in  it  were  published  the  laws;  even  letters  to  the  court  were 
in  pure  vernacular,  and  their  nervous,  direct,  picturesque 
style  makes  us  regret  that  the  scribes  did  not  condescend  to 
use  it  in  their  literary  productions.  Instead  of  developing 
their  own  language,  they  attempted  to  write  Akkadian,  and 
the  result  was  the  fearful  and  wonderful  mixture  of  the  royal 
annals.  Assyrian  scholars  never  quite  succeeded  in  writing 
pure  Babylonian,  and  the  records  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  in  par¬ 
ticular  have  a  large  infusion  of  native  forms  and  phrases.  In 
time,  their  Akkadian  improved. 

In  language,  the  royal  annals  might  be  a  queer  compound 
of  the  two  languages,  the  style  was  purely  Assyrian,  and  they 
are  the  greatest  glory  of  the  Assyrian  literature.  In  a  very 
real  sense,  true  history  begins  with  the  Assyrians.  Their  pred¬ 
ecessors  in  Babylonia  had  been  quite  content  with  the  barest 
reference  to  their  conquests  or  their  buildings,  though  a  few 


578 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


rare  exceptions  do  pass  beyond  this.  Annals  were  not  quite 
unknown,  and  the  practical  necessities  of  business  demanded 
a  certain  attention  to  chronology,  but  the  scribes  of  Ham¬ 
murabi  had  barely  gone  beyond  the  line  or  two  that  described 
a  successful  war  or  a  religious  ceremony  which  was  used  to 
date  the  year.  Hittites  and  Egyptians  had  annals  of  a  sort, 
and  the  former  often  prefixed  a  historical  introduction  of  some 
literary  pretensions  to  their  treaties. 

Arik-den-ilu  is  the  author  of  the  first  truly  annalistic  his¬ 
tory  in  Assyria.  Coming  so  soon  after  Assyrian  relations  with 
these  two  countries,  we  may  suspect  a  certain  influence,  but 
the  chief  basis  was  Babylonian.  The  three  main  divisions, 
invocation  to  the  gods,  account  of  the  conquests,  statement 
of  the  building  operations,  remained  the  three  chief  divisions 
to  the  last  edition.  The  invention  of  the  cylinder,  or  hexagon, 
with  its  crowded  lines  of  script,  permitted  a  longer  narrative, 
and  with  the  inscription  of  Tiglath  Pileser  I  we  have  the  annals 
full  grown. 

Historians  up  to  very  recent  times  have  considered  foreign 
wars  the  chief  if  not  the  only  subject  worthy  of  their  pens,  and 
the  Assyrian  scribes  were  not  in  advance  of  their  successors. 
In  fact,  they  were  the  first  to  prepare  detailed  narratives  of 
their  military  expeditions,  and  a  too  close  following  of  their 
annals  by  modern  writers  has  created  the  impression  that  the 
Assyrians  were  more  warlike  than  the  other  imperial  races  of 
history.  After  all,  history  must  be  written  on  the  basis  of  the 
extant  records,  which  is  why  even  the  present  volume  is  too 
largely  a  record  of  war. 

The  Assyrian  scribe  was  almost  a  fanatic  for  exact  chro¬ 
nology,  and  the  system  by  which  each  year  received  its  name 
from  some  high  official  was  a  great  aid.  As  pious  introduc¬ 
tion  and  conclusion  dealing  with  building  grew  ever  longer, 
many  facts  of  cultural  interest  crept  in,  and  they  are  never 
absent  from  the  main  narrative.  Sometimes  the  annals  are 
dull  lists  of  formulas,  as  in  those  of  the  last  Tiglath  Pileser, 
but  even  the  dullest  has  its  flashes  of  genius,  its  quotable 
phrases,  its  apt  comparisons,  its  keen  appreciation  of  nature. 


THE  REED  STYLUS  OF  THE  SCRIBE 


579 


The  highest  flights  of  which  it  was  capable  are  seen  in  the  great 
tablet  inscription  composed  for  Sargon  or  in  the  literary  exer¬ 
cises  of  Ashur-bani-apal.  Constant  quotation  in  the  preced¬ 
ing  pages  will  have  shown  how  effective  from  the  literary  stand¬ 
point  is  much  of  this  historical  material. 

Unfortunately  it  is  true,  though  quite  understandable  in 
these  days  of  historian  propagandists,  that  the  neutral  his¬ 
torian  cannot  praise  his  predecessor  as  much  for  accuracy  of 
fact  as  for  vividness  of  expression.  These  scribes  were  no 
cold-blooded  scientists,  willing  to  tell  the  truth,  however  un¬ 
pleasant  or  however  derogatory  to  their  country’s  fame.  They 
were  state  officials,  with  all  the  opportunity  to  know  the  truth 
which  comes  from  official  position  and  all  the  inducements  to 
tell  the  story  as  their  master  wished  which  influenced  nine¬ 
teenth-century  “  nationalistic  ”  history  or  the  franker  twen¬ 
tieth-century  official  propaganda.  Success  in  glossing  over 
unpleasant  facts  meant  promotion,  too  great  truthfulness 
might  lose  their  heads.  Patriotism  demanded  that  records 
inscribed  on  the  walls  to  be  read  by  ambassadors  or  subject 
princes  should  teach  the  folly  of  resistance  to  Assyrian  de¬ 
mands.  Thus  royal  annals  were  of  the  same  character  as  the 
recent  productions  which  have  shown  so  often  that  our  boasted 
scientific  writing  of  history  is  one  more  of  the  great  illusions. 

Each  year  an  important  conquest  was  made  saw  a  new  edi¬ 
tion  prepared.  The  first  edition  more  closely  approximated 
the  truth  as  it  was  known  to  contemporaries,  though  with 
many  gaps  and  not  a  few  misstatements  of  facts.  This  portion 
was  much  abbreviated  in  the  next  edition  and  “  improvements  ” 
were  introduced  which  seriously  vitiated  its  accuracy.  Finally, 
and  this  is  especially  true  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  honesty  is  thrown 
to  the  winds  and  whole  campaigns  are  stolen  from  the  father 
to  add  to  the  glory  of  the  son. 

Statistics  were  the  special  joy  of  the  Assyrian  historian  and 
he  could  perform  wonders  with  their  aid.  A  favourite  trick 
was  to  retain  the  original  number  of  enemies  killed  or  prisoners 
and  booty  taken,  and  to  prefix  to  this  a  huge  round  number. 
This  operation  can  be  traced  from  edition  to  edition,  as  when 


580 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  original  account  of  the  sheep  taken  at  Musasir  says  1,235 
and  the  official  annals  composed  seven  years  later  says  100,- 
225.  When,  therefore,  we  find  Sennacherib  claiming  the  cap¬ 
ture  of  200,150  from  Hezekiah  of  Judah,  it  is  natural  to  as¬ 
sume  that  the  real  number  was  150. 

So  well  did  the  Assyrians  handle  their  histories,  at  least 
from  the  literary  point  of  view,  that  we  expect  great  things  in 
the  other  categories  of  the  ancient  literature,  but  we  are  doomed 
to  disappointment.  Only  in  the  literature  centring  about 
Ashur  do  we  have  a  purely  religious  and  native  development. 
There  was  a  creation  story  which  gave  the  honour  to  Ashur, 
and  the  hymns  to  Ashur  are  native  compositions,  however 
they  may  have  been  modelled  on  the  Babylonian.  The  proph¬ 
ecies  of  Ishtar  of  Arbela  have  real  literary  merit  and  often 
remind  us  of  Biblical  parallels  in  the  later  literature  of  con¬ 
solation  to  degraded  and  captive  Israel.  Here  and  there  in 
the  Babylonian  compositions  found  in  Nineveh  we  may  de¬ 
tect  Assyrian  interpolations. 

The  Assyrian  genius  for  religious  composition  was  unfor¬ 
tunately  overwhelmed  by  the  enormous  mass  of  Babylonian 
literature  already  available.  The  ever-increasing  waves  of 
Babylonianisation  in  the  last  Assyrian  century  made  the  Baby¬ 
lonian  gods,  with  Marduk  at  their  head,  and  by  his  side  Nabu, 
the  god  of  the  writing  stylus,  more  prominent  than  ever.  With 
them  came  their  literature.  The  libraries  were  filled  from 
Babylonia,  though  it  may  be  questioned  what  was  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  the  tablets  brought  in  so  late  as  the  time  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal. 

While  Ashur-bani-apal  was  filling  his  library  with  tablets 
from  the  earlier  literature,  there  was  going  on  a  struggle  which 
was  quite  unnoticed  by  contemporaries,  and  no  historian  has 
sung  the  warfare.  At  least  five  thousand  years  before,  the 
Egyptians  had  invented  an  alphabet,  in  which  the  various 
consonantal  sounds  were  represented  by  a  single  sign.  Their 
invincible  conservatism  had  prevented  extensive  use  of  the 
new  system,  and  more  particularly  since  the  older  pictographic 
writing  was  a  shorter  and  more  convenient  method  of  abbre- 


THE  REED  STYLUS  OF  THE  SCRIBE 


581 


viation — after  the  scribe  had  learned  the  large  number  of  signs. 
It  was  therefore  used  principally  for  spelling  out  foreign  names 
and  words. 

About  the  middle  of  the  second  millennium,  Semites  bor¬ 
rowed  the  alphabet  and  abandoned  the  remainder  of  the  com¬ 
plicated  system.  Our  first  traces  of  this,  the  first  true  alphabet 
the  world  had  ever  seen,  are  found  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula, 
but  exactly  who  its  authors  were  has  not  yet  been  discovered. 
Some  have  argued  that  Arab  nomads  have  the  honour,  but  it 
is  far  more  probable  that  the  traditional  attribution  is  true, 
for  the  Phoenicians  were  just  coming  into  their  own  as  inter¬ 
national  traders.  By  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century,  the 
alphabet  is  in  extensive  use  in  Syria,  as  is  testified  by  the  Ka- 
lamu  and  Zakir  inscriptions  in  the  north,  by  the  stele  of  Mesha 
in  Moab,  by  the  jar  writings  of  Ahab’s  palace,  and  by  the 
numerous  seals,  such  as  that  which  bears  the  name  of  the 
second  Jeroboam.  So  extensive  an  employment  can  only  be 
explained  by  a  fairly  long  use  of  the  alphabet  in  Phoenicia, 
especially  as  the  characters  all  show  the  effect  of  much  cursive 
writing.1 

Though  written  in  the  Phoenician  character  and  language, 
the  names  of  the  individuals  who  prepare  them  and  the  slips 
in  the  language  show  the  north  Syrian  inscriptions  the  work 
of  Aramaeans.  In  the  next  century,  the  records  are  in  the  Ara¬ 
maean  language  itself.  Thus  by  the  middle  of  the  eighth  cen¬ 
tury  the  two  commercial  peoples  of  the  empire  were  using 
the  alphabet.  This  is  the  very  period  when  Aramaeans  were 
settling  in  every  corner  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria;  it  is  just 
in  this  middle  of  the  eighth  century  that  we  chance  upon  our 
first  Aramaic  “ docket”  on  a  cuneiform  tablet,  and  a  half-cen¬ 
tury  later  they  begin  to  make  their  appearance  in  Assyria. 
Business  documents  are  still  written  in  the  cuneiform  Assyrian, 
without  which  the  transaction  would  not  be  valid,  but  on  the 
edge  of  the  tablet  would  often  be  found  a  notation  in  Aramaic, 
brief,  but  sufficient  to  identify  it.  The  writer  is  obviously 

Gardiner,  Jour.  Egypt.  Archaeology ,  III,  1  ff.;  Luckenbill,  AJSL.,  XXXVI, 

27  ff. 


582 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


accustomed  to  Aramaic  as  his  native  language.  Soon  the 
court  found  it  necessary  to  possess  an  Aramaic  scribe.  Mat¬ 
ters  had  gone  so  far  in  the  reign  of  Ashur-bani-apal  that  two 
high  officials  could  send  an  official  letter  to  one  another,  not 
in  cuneiform  on  a  clay  tablet,  but  as  an  Aramaic  ostracon. 

The  end  of  the  Assyrian  Empire  saw  the  advantage  still  on 
the  side  of  the  cuneiform,  and  in  the  last  years  of  Ashur-bani- 
apal  Assyrian  business  documents  were  prepared  in  Gezer 
of  Palestine.  Throughout  the  whole  Chaldsean  period  they 
continue  to  be  so  written,  but  Aramaic  indorsements  increase, 
and  there  are  no  tablets  from  the  west.  Darius  the  Persian  af¬ 
forded  the  last  opportunity  to  the  cuneiform,  when  his  scholars 
adapted  the  writing  to  the  Iranian  language,  and  a  real  alpha¬ 
bet,  though  less  perfect  than  the  Semitic,  was  prepared.  Only 
Darius  himself  left  full  records  in  the  new  writing,  his  suc¬ 
cessors  used  it  most  sparingly.  Another  century  saw  the  Ara¬ 
maic  adopted  as  the  official  language  of  the  Persian  Empire. 
Egypt  is  full  of  Aramaic  papyri,  including  those  from  the  Jew¬ 
ish  community  at  Elephantine;  Jewish  leaders  in  Palestine 
preferred  it  to  the  antiquated,  if  sacred,  Hebrew;  natives  of 
Asia  Minor  wrote  in  it  or  used  its  characters  for  their  own 
language;  the  Phrygians  borrowed  it  towards  the  end  of  the 
eighth  century,  the  Lydians  used  it  side  by  side  with  their  own, 
the  Greeks  took  over  the  Phoenician  form  in  the  seventh  or 
sixth  century.  It  became  the  accepted  character  of  Europe 
and  has  retained  its  place  to  this  day,  with  still  ever-increasing 
range,  while  both  character  and  language  were  the  common 
possession  of  the  Near  East  for  a  thousand  years  till  the  neigh¬ 
bour  Arabic  came  to  hold  its  sway  to  the  present. 

The  cuneiform  was  now  confined  to  Babylonia.  Conser¬ 
vatism  continued  to  employ  it  through  Persian  and  Hellen¬ 
istic  and  into  the  Arsacide  period.  The  last  tablets  date  from 
the  first  century  before  our  era.  The  final  battle  of  the  cunei¬ 
form  had  been  fought  and  lost,  and  the  script  became  for  nine¬ 
teen  hundred  years  the  great  mystery  of  western  Asia. 

Side  by  side  was  waged  another  battle  of  culture.  Like  the 
cuneiform  writing,  the  clay  tablet  had  its  day  of  victory.  To- 


THE  REED  STYLUS  OF  THE  SCRIBE 


583 


gether  they  had  spread  to  Mesopotamia,  to  Armenia,  to  Asia 
Minor,  to  Syria  and  Palestine,  to  Egypt,  and  the  Minoans  of 
Crete,  though  they  had  invented  a  new  system  of  writing  of 
their  own,  retained  the  clay  tablet. 

When  the  Minoans  fell  before  the  Indo-Europeans,  the 
tablet  disappeared.  About  the  same  time,  it  ceased  to  be  em¬ 
ployed  in  Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt  knew  it  no  more  after  it 
ceased  to  be  longer  needed  to  communicate  with  Syrian  vas¬ 
sals.  Examples  are  found  in  Palestine  to  the  days  of  Ashur- 
bani-apal,  but  its  fate  had  by  now  been  settled. 

Papyrus  had  already  reached  Phoenicia  in  the  days  of 
Wenamon,  who  found  the  archives  of  the  Zakkalu  chief  thus 
written.  Its  progress  was  much  slower  than  that  of  the  alpha¬ 
bet,  or  even  of  pen  and  ink.  Ink  first  appears  on  the  margin 
of  the  clay  tablet,  then  it  was  used  on  the  potsherd.  Papyrus 
did  not  grow  in  western  Asia,  it  must  be  exported  long  dis¬ 
tances,  it  was  easily  broken.  A  substitute  was  therefore  dis¬ 
covered,  the  prepared  skins  of  beasts.  Skins  of  cattle  and  of 
white  lambs  are  assigned  to  the  priests  of  Gula  and  Ishtar, 
to  the  city  scribe  and  the  scribe  of  the  temple.1  The  new  writ¬ 
ing  material  first  appears  under  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  and  there¬ 
after  every  expedition  has  its  two  scribes,  the  chief  with  stylus 
and  tablet,  his  assistant  with  papyrus  roll  or  parchment  and 
Egyptian  pen. 

After  the  Chaldaean  period,  the  tablet  was  confined  to  Baby¬ 
lonia.  Pen  and  paper  had  won  the  fight  against  the  clumsy 
tablet,  but  the  tablet  had  its  revenge;  the  papyri  and  parch¬ 
ments  of  western  Asia  have  disappeared  as  completely  as  will 
our  paper,  but  the  clay  tablets  survive  the  centuries.2 

1  Schroeder,  OLZ.,  XX,  204. 

2  Cf.  Breasted,  Physical  Processes  of  Writing  in  the  Early  Orient ,  AJSL.,  XXXII, 
230  ff. 


CHAPTER  X  L  V 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 

Science,  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  made 
no  appeal  to  the  ancient  Oriental  mind;  it  was  wisdom,  the 
knowledge  that  produces  a  practical  result,  which  in  Biblical 
language  was  more  precious  than  rubies.  Like  the  Biblical 
wisdom,  it  was  of  divine  origin  and  closely  associated  with 
things  divine;  it  was  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers  and  it  was  con¬ 
fined  to  the  learned  class.  The  Oriental  attitude  could  not  be 
better  summed  up  than  by  the  heading  prefixed  to  one  of  the 
astrological  works:  “Let  wise  man  tell  wise  man,  the  fool 
shall  not  behold  it,  for  it  is  a  mystery  of  the  gods  Anu  and 
Enlil” 

Great  discoveries  might  have  been  expected  in  wisdom  from 
the  curious  and  versatile  Semitic  mind;  the  Assyrian  aris¬ 
tocracy  was  interested  in  other,  and  to  them  more  important, 
matters  than  natural  science.  In  general,  they  were  content 
to  take  their  wisdom  ready-made. 

Primitive  man  early  begins  to  speculate  concerning  the  sen¬ 
sible  world  about  him  and  to  inquire  how  the  universe  came 
into  being.  Each  city-state  of  Babylonia  possessed  its  story 
of  origins  in  which  its  divine  king  played  the  part  of  creator. 
With  their  usual  patriotic  acquisitiveness,  the  scribes  of.  Baby¬ 
lon  worked  up  all  the  earlier  material  into  the  seven  tablets 
which  show  all  the  other  gods,  in  fear  of  the  dread  chaos  mon¬ 
ster  Tiamat,  handing  over  their  rights  in  the  creative  process 
to  Marduk  in  recognition  of  his  bravery.  Most  Assyrian 
scholars  accepted  this  as  the  orthodox  theory  of  creation. 

Contact  with  Babylonia  made  the  Assyrians  conscious  that 
they  too  needed  a  local  creation  story.  Now  in  the  seven 
tablets,  immediately  after  the  chaos  monsters,  appeared  An- 
shar  and  Kishar,  parents  of  the  sky-god  Anu,  and  the  first 
deities  to  represent  order.  Even  the  epic  in  honour  of  Mar- 

584 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 


585 


duk  admitted  that  they  got  the  better  of  the  forces  of  disorder. 
The  Assyrians  therefore  went  back  of  Marduk  and  identified 
Ashur  with  Anshar.  It  was  Anshar  and  not  his  successor  of 
Babylon  who  destroyed  the  chaos  monster  by  creating  a  mighty 
wind  which  was  thrust  up  her  nostrils  and  thus  killed  her,  it 
was  Anshar  whom  the  gods  celebrated  and  who  assigned  them 
their  places.  The  last,  and  naturally  the  most  important,  of 
Anshar’s  creative  acts  was  the  establishment  of  a  copy  of 
Esharra,  the  pronouncing  the  name  of  the  city  of  Ashur,  whose 
was  to  be  the  rule  over  whatever  his  hands  had  created,  over 
the  earth  that  his  hands  had  created.  At  the  prediction,  the 
gods  rejoiced.1 

Sennacherib  was  not  satisfied  with  even  this  concession  to 
Babylonian  thinking.  To  him  Ashur  alone  was  the  sole  crea¬ 
tor.  He  was  not  only  king  of  all  the  gods  and  father  of  the 
gods,  lord  of  the  whole  body  of  gods,  king  of  heaven  and  earth 
— he  was  creator  of  the  gods,  creator  of  Anu’s  heaven  and  of 
the  abode  of  the  dead,  maker  of  all  peoples;  he  fixed  their  fates. 
Sennacherib  retold  the  story  of  the  struggle  with  Tiamat. 
Before  Ashur  went  the  Mesopotamian  gods,  Sharur,  Shargaz, 
the  messenger  Gaga,  Nusku,  Shulmanu,  Tishpak,  Urta  of  the 
wall,  Azag-suga,  Hani,  Sibitti;  after  him  marched  Ninlil, 
Sherua,  Sin,  Ningal,  Shamash,  Aia,  the  Mistress,  Anu  and 
Antum,  Adad  and  Shala,  Ea  and  Damkina,  the  Mistress  of 
the  gods,  and  Urta.  Marduk,  Nabu,  and  their  consorts  are 
conspicuously  missing.  Mounted  on  a  chariot  with  Amurru  as 
his  driver,  he  raised  his  bow  against  Tiamat  and  the  monsters 
her  progeny,  he  drew  up  his  battle-line  of  gods  in  chariots  and 
afoot,  he  loosed  against  her  the  deluge.  The  gods  who  were 
on  foot  bound  Tiamat  and  brought  her  to  Ashur,  her  progeny 
fled  seeking  a  safe  place,  but  were  put  to  death.2 

After  creation,  primitive  man  demands  a  series  of  demi¬ 
gods  to  explain  how  various  facts  of  life  came  to  be.  Such  a 
myth  as  that  of  Adapa  breaking  the  wings  of  the  west  wing, 

1  CT.f  XIII,  24  f.;  Rogers,  Cuneiform  Parallels ,  54  ff. 

2  Craig,  Religious  Texts ,  I,  83;  Meissner-Rost,  Bauinschriften,  pi.  16;  Rogers, 
Parallels ,  57  ff. 


586 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


his  ascent  to  heaven,  his  being  cheated  by  a  trick  of  eternal 
life,  answered  the  very  practical  question  as  to  why  man  does 
not  live  forever.  The  same  question  is  raised  in  the  great  epic, 
that  of  Gilgamesh,  which  is  in  truth  a  series  of  etiological 
myths. 

Incorporated  in  this  was  the  story  of  the  world  flood,  which, 
starting  from  Babylonia  and  closely  copied  in  Palestine,  fol¬ 
lowed  the  south  of  Asia,  crossed  the  Pacific  by  its  chaii<  ofaaL 
ands,  and  divided  into  both  North  and  South  America, 
widely  differing  stories  had  been  incorporated  in  the  epic,  one 
from  Shuruppak,  whose  hero  was  Atrahasis,  the  other  cen¬ 
tring  about  Pir-napishtim  of  Sippar.  The  Assyrian  addition 
was  characteristic. 

The  original  author  placed  the  landing-place  of  the  ark  on 
Mount  Nisir,  the  “Mount  of  Salvation/7  and  by  this  he  un¬ 
doubtedly  meant  one  of  the  peaks  of  the  near-by  mountains 
of  Elam.  Ashur-nasir-apal  identified  it  with  the  magnificent 
isolated  mountain  he  found  east  of  his  own  country.  The 
opening  up  of  this  territory  moved  the  ark  still  farther  into 
the  unknown,  and  in  the  later  years  of  the  empire  it  was  sup¬ 
posed  to  have  rested  on  the  mountains  of  Urartu.  This  last 
century  of  Assyrian  rule,  especially  during  the  long  reign  of 
the  pro-Assyrian  Manasseh,  was  the  period  when  the  legends 
of  the  Tigris-Euphrates  region  were  being  worked  over  by  the 
Hebrew  scribes.  Although  the  Hebrew  editor  cleansed  the 
flood  story  of  all  its  polytheistic  elements,  he  still  retained 
the  “mountains  of  Ararat”  as  the  resting-place  of  Noah’s 
ark.  After  the  Christian  Era,  Josephus  locates  it  in  the  Kur¬ 
dish  mountains,  and  a  few  hours’  climb  north  of  Mosul  will 
still  show  the  tourist  its  supposed  remains.  The  restless  ark 
had  still  one  more  move  to  make.  Post-Christian  identification 
was  with  the  magnificent  mountain  still  farther  north,  the 
highest  in  western  Asia,  though  the  native  Armenians  retain 
the  knowledge  that  it  really  should  be  called  Mount  Masis, 
and  that  Airarat  was  a  province  far  to  the  south. 

The  practical  Assyrian  mind  desired  knowledge  of  the  past 
that  he  might  understand  the  present,  but  still  more  did  he 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 


587 


wish  to  predict  the  future.  No  branch  of  wisdom  could  be 
more  important,  for  no  action  of  king  or  people  might  be 
carried  out  contrary  to  the  expressed  will  of  the  gods.  As  a 
by-product  followed  the  beginnings  of  many  of  the  sciences. 

Like  all  peoples  of  early  culture,  the  Shumerians  discovered 
the  expression  of  the  divine  will  in  all  the  manifestations  of 
nature.  Their  religion  was  saturated  with  ideas  not  far  from 
^^aifimistic,  and  every  object  around  them  might  have  a 
Spiritual  reason  for  its  activity.  Each  action  of  bird  and  ani¬ 
mal  and  insect  was  carefully  observed,  the  more  so  if  it  were 
at  all  out  of  the  ordinary,  and  with  it  a  result  which  had  been 
actually  noted  or  one  which  had  been  deduced  logically. 
Scores  of  tablets  with  these  observations  were  copied  for 
Ashur-bani-apal,  but  we  rarely  find  them  connected  with  his¬ 
torical  happenings. 

Careful  note  of  such  facts  in  nature  had  its  reaction  on  the 
minds  of  the  observers.  Animals  were  divided  into  classes, 
“ living  beings,”  that  is,  men,  vertebrates,  birds,  and  “worms,” 
fish,  true  worms,  and  the  lower  animals.  Species  and  varieties 
were  rather  closely  distinguished,  and  there  was  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  a  crude  zoology. 

Liver  divination  was  the  method  of  unveiling  the  future 
most  in  use  at  the  Assyrian  court.  Throughout  the  whole 
world,  at  a  certain  stage  of  knowledge,  the  liver  is  conceived 
as  the  seat  of  the  emotions,  and  the  story  of  the  last  Assyrian 
century  has  shown  how  this  belief  survived  side  by  side  with 
the  more  familiar  identification  of  this  centre  with  the  heart. 
While  this  belief  was  still  dominant,  Shumerian  scholars  had 
worked  out  an  elaborate  system  of  prediction  based  on  the 
assumption  that  the  future  might  be  foretold  by  the  most 
“knowing”  part  of  the  sacrificed  sheep,  the  liver.1 

Later  this  highly  animistic  belief  was  combined  with  a  purely 
Semitic  custom,  the  appeal  to  Shamash,  the  sun-god,  as  the 
lord  of  destiny.  As  substitute  for  the  sacred  lot  cast  in  Arabia, 
a  tablet  was  prepared  and  laid  before  Shamash,  and  he  was 
besought  to  give  faithful  decision  through  the  sacrificed  sheep. 

1  Cf.  especially  Jastrow,  Religion,  II,  203  ff.;  Aspects  of  Religious  Belief,  147  ff. 


588 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


After  this  concession  to  a  higher  power,  the  actual  result  was 
obtained  from  a  minute  study  of  the  liver.  Every  line  or  pro¬ 
tuberance  was  marked  and  a  special  science  grew  up.  Actual 
happenings  played  some  small  part  in.,  its  development,  as 
when  the  correlation  of  signs  with  the  events  in  the  elder  Sar- 
gon’s  life  was  attempted.  Rigid  logic  formed  its  chief  basis. 
All  signs  on  the  left  were  unfavourable,  those  on  the  right  were 
propitious.  Lines  which  resembled  the  things  of  earth  had 
similar  meaning  on  the  liver,  and  the  size  of  the  objects  con¬ 
cerned  afforded  appropriate  indication.  We  have  seen  how 
often  this  method  was  used  in  a  national  crisis,  and  how  valued 
is  the  light  cast  on  the  narrative  history. 

We  should  expect  that  such  minute  study  of  the  internal 
organs  would  result  in  comparisons  with  those  of  a  man,  that 
some  start  would  be  made  towards  anatomy  and  medicine. 
It  is  a  fact  that  the  vocabulary  devoted  to  human  anatomy 
is  extraordinarily  large.  Medicine  was  still  encumbered  with 
the  whole  paraphernalia  of  hocus-pocus  derived  from  a  remote 
and  animistic  past,  but  despite  this  severe  handicap,  something 
had  been  learned  in  medicine  and  hygiene.  The  letters  deal¬ 
ing  with  the  health  of  Ashur-bani-apabs  family  furnish  an 
excellent  picture  of  the  medical  art  in  the  seventh  century. 

More  typical  of  Babylonian  wisdom  is  astrology,  the  fore¬ 
casting  of  the  future  from  the  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies. 
Of  all  the  pseudosciences,  astrology  is  the  most  worthy  of 
respect,  as  is  proved  by  the  lateness  of  its  survival  and  by  the 
eminence  of  the  scientists  who  have  believed  in  the  influences 
of  the  stars. 

So  austere  a  cult  can  hardly  have  grown  from  the  rank 
soil  of  Shumerian  animism  or  from  the  vaporous  marshes  of 
the  alluvium.  The  stars  indeed  appear  with  Shumerian  names, 
and  some  part  of  it  may  have  been  developed  in  the  moun¬ 
tains  of  Elam.  It  is  the  thin  air  of  the  desert  which  gives  a 
brilliance  to  the  heavenly  host  not  found  in  moister  lands;  the 
long  night  marches  inevitable  to  avoid  the  day’s  heat  afford 
unmeasured  leisure  to  observe  the  only  objects  visible  in  the 
black  dark.  It  is  easy  to  discover  that  the  path  through  the 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 


589 


trackless  desert  may  be  directed  by  the  stars,  it  is  an  easy 
transition  to  believe  that  one’s  march  through  life  may  be 
determined  by  these  same  heavenly  orbs.  Traces  of  the  popu¬ 
lar  astronomy  of  the  Arab  have  survived  the  invasion  of  Greek 
terminology. 

The  sun  in  his  various  manifestations  is  the  chief  god  of  the 
Semites.  His  path  through  the  heavens  is  the  ecliptic,  and  by 
him  is  determined  the  natural  year.  On  his  annual  journey, 
he  passes  through  the  twelve  constellations  which  give  their 
names  to  the  zodiac,  names  which  have  survived  almost  un¬ 
changed  to  our  day.  His  withdrawal  through  an  eclipse  is 
a  terrible  calamity,  likely  to  stir  up  revolt  and  worthy  men¬ 
tion  as  the  most  important  event  of  the  year. 

Sin,  the  moon-god,  was  the  ruler  of  the  night,  when  desert 
men  must  work,  and  there  was  always  a  tendency  evident  to 
place  him  on  an  even  higher  throne  than  the  sun.  His  ap¬ 
pearances  and  disappearances  formed  a  convenient  and  obvious 
method  of  keeping  time,  and  twelve  of  his  months  gave  a  year 
which  could  be  adjusted  to  the  solar  year  by  the  use  of  an  oc¬ 
casional  intercalated  month,  for  no  cycle  had  yet  been  in¬ 
vented  whereby  the  adjustment  might  be  regularised.  His 
chief  means  of  foretelling  the  future  was  through  his  eclipses. 
It  was  recognised  that  eclipse  must  take  place  at  the  full  moon, 
but  the  sar,  or  period  of  six  thousand  five  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  days,  a  little  over  eighteen  years,  after  which  eclipses  re¬ 
cur,  had  not  yet  been  discovered. 

Each  full  moon  was  carefully  watched,  and  report  was  made 
as  to  whether  the  awaited  eclipse  took  place  or  not.  Since  the 
greater  number  of  the  lunar  eclipses  are  partial,  special  atten¬ 
tion  was  directed  to  such  cases.  The  moon’s  disk  was  divided 
into  four  sections,  one  each  attributed  in  the  celestial  geog¬ 
raphy  to  Akkad,  Elam,  Subartu,  and  Amurru.  Reference  to 
the  Amorite  land  fixes  an  upper  limit,  the  failure  to  mention 
Assyria  determines  the  lower  date,  with  the  result  that  the 
system  must  have  been  put  in  use  about  the  time  of  Ham¬ 
murabi. 

Assyrian  scholars  took  the  system  over  without  change,  and 


590 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


in  their  letters  regularly  cite  verbatim  the  Anu-Enlil  series. 
Akkad  became  a  foreign  land,  and  Assyria  desired  its  fate  to 
be  good  when  it  was  united  with  Assyria,  bad  when  disjoined. 
Subartu  was  identified  with  Assyria,  as  an  explanatory  note 
from  one  of  the  astronomers  informs  the  king.  Elam  and 
Amurru  were  regularly  enemy  lands.  The  omen  was  repeated 
in  its  ancient  form,  but  the  scribes  did  not  hesitate  to  add  an 
explanation  in  terms  of  the  present-day  situation. 

While  the  opposition  of  sun  and  moon  was  carefully  watched 
for  eclipses  of  the  moon,  the  conjunction  was  observed  for 
another  purpose.  By  it  and  by  the  first  appearing  of  the  new 
moon,  the  new  month  was  ritually  established  and  all  was 
happiness  once  more,  since  the  god  had  reappeared.  The 
ritual  first  of  the  month  was  determined  by  actual  observa¬ 
tion — that  the  letters  prove;  but  the  business  documents  show 
that  there  was  also  a  standard  artificial  month. 

At  the  conjunction  of  sun  and  moon  they  had  learned  that 
solar  eclipses  might  be  expected,  though  they  did  not  know 
just  when.  Solar  eclipses  are  far  less  in  numbers,  but  the  three 
great  total  eclipses  of  the  sun,  August  15,  831,  April  2,  824, 
and  June  15,  763,  all  within  the  space  of  a  man’s  life  of  three¬ 
score  years  and  ten,  must  have  given  a  powerful  impulse  to 
the  study  as  it  impressed  the  Hebrew  prophet  Amos  and  the 
editor  of  the  Assyrian  Chronicle.  Mar  Ishtar  relates  how  the 
moon  disappeared  on  the  27th,  how  they  kept  watch  on  the 
28th,  29th,  and  30th  for  the  eclipse  of  the  sun,  but  it  passed 
by  until  the  moon  appeared  on  its  proper  day,  the  1st  of  July, 
and  fixed  the  new  month.  The  king  has  written  Balasi:  “Is 
there  anything  in  the  heavens?  Do  thou  observe.”  His 
eyes  are  steadfast,  he  sees  nothing  at  all;  this  is  the  reason 
he  has  sent  nothing  to  the  king,  for  there  is  nothing  to  inter¬ 
pret.  It  is  now  the  month  to  expect  an  eclipse  of  the  sun-god, 
and  watch  will  be  kept  on  the  26th  of  November  and  the  26th 
of  December.  The  expected  eclipse  did  not  take  place;  the 
king  will  hear  the  news  with  a  sad  heart.  An  eclipse  was  calcu¬ 
lated  but  was  not  visible  in  Ashur,  for  as  it  approached  that 
city,  behold  there  were  clouds  everywhere  and  it  was  impos- 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 


591 


sible  to  discover  if  the  eclipse  took  place.  Let  the  king  send 
to  the  cities  of  Babylonia,  surely  it  was  seen  in  those  cities, 
and  so  the  king  may  secure  reliable  information.  The 
abarakku  and  the  magicians  had  calculated  the  sign  of  the 
eclipse,  it  was  to  come  in  May  or  April.  Although  the  king 
had  not  abandoned  the  freeing  incantations  against  the  eclipse, 
which  in  fact  are  performed  to  make  good  any  sin  whatsoever, 
the  great  gods  who  dwell  in  the  king’s  city  overcast  the  sky 
and  did  not  permit  him  to  behold  the  eclipse,  for  they  said: 
“Let  the  king  realise  that  this  eclipse  is  not  hostile  to  the  king 
or  to  his  land.”  Let  the  king  rejoice;  in  the  month  of  April 
the  weather-god  Adad  will  grant  peace  and  the  seed-grain 
will  be  restored.1 

Munnabitum  sends  the  king  a  letter  about  the  lunar  eclipse, 
instead  of  reporting  by  word  of  mouth.  The  month,  the  day, 
the  watch,  the  exact  point  where  the  eclipse  began  and  with¬ 
drew  are  the  points  to  be  considered  in  fixing  its  evil.  The 
month  of  June  refers  to  Amurru  and  a  decision  is  given  to  Ur; 
its  evil  applies  to  the  fourteenth  day,  since  they  declare:  “The 
fourteenth  is  Elam.”  The  exact  point  where  it  began  is  un¬ 
known,  but  it  withdrew  to  the  southwest,  which  predicts  evil 
for  Elam  and  Amurru;  as  it  was  bright  to  the  east  and  north, 
it  is  propitious  for  Subartu  and  Akkad,  it  says  they  shall  win 
favour.  The  omen  for  all  lands:  The  right  of  the  moon  is 
Akkad,  the  left  Elam,  the  upper  part  is  Amurru,  the  lower  is 
Subartu.  Jupiter  stood  in  the  eclipse,  it  signifies  peace  for 
the  king,  his  name  will  be  honoured  and  without  a  rival.2 

On  the  thirtieth  day  the  moon  was  high;  let  the  king  wait 
before  the  city  of  Ashur,  let  the  king  establish  the  day.  Sin 
has  set  his  face  for  favour,  it  is  the  beginning  of  the  month, 
but  it  is  not  good  to  plan  a  thing  for  this  day.  His  light  is 
bright  on  the  13th,  it  is  auspicious  for  a  military  expedition, 
on  the  14th  moon  and  sun  are  together,  a  favourable  day  will 
be  opened  up.3 

With  the  sun  and  moon  went  the  five  other  planets,  “stars 
that  alter  their  positions  and  cross  the  heavens.”  Morning 

1 H.  744;  687;  895.  1006;  cf.  H.  137.  3H.  894;  352;  76. 


592 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


and  evening  stars  were  recognised  as  identical  and  considered 
as  Ishtar,  the  predecessor  of  Venus  in  the  skies  as  in  the  hearts 
of  men  and  women.  Mercury  was  the  abode  of  Nabu,  and 
because  of  its  closeness  to  the  sun  was  most  carefully  observed 
and  with  surprisingly  accurate  results.  Mars  was  identified 
with  Nergal,  the  destroying  sun-god,  doubtless  because  of  its 
fiery  red  colour,  and  was  naturally  hostile  to  those  who  saw 
it.  As  the  star  of  Elam,  ever  an  enemy  of  the  alluvium,  it 
was  the  robber  star,  the  star  that  deals  death.  Jupiter  was 
the  royal  star  and  was  identified  by  the  citizens  of  Babylon 
with  Marduk;  the  “ terribly  bright  and  great  star”  was  on 
the  whole  favourable  but  with  the  qualifications  due  to  an 
earthly  monarch  who  was  essentially  just  but  humanly  ca¬ 
pricious.  We  have  seen  what  a  part  his  favourable  movements 
played  in  the  restoration  of  Babylon  by  Esarhaddon.1  Saturn, 
the  black  star,  was  the  guardian  of  right  and  justice,  and  since 
it  reached  its  culmination  in  the  “  Scales,”  these  came  to  be 
accepted  as  symbols  of  justice. 

Mar  Ishtar  has  written  the  king  that  Jupiter  appears  in  the 
path  of  Anu,  in  the  region  of  the  star  of  the  faithful  shepherd, 
Orion;  it  is  low  in  the  haze,  he  does  not  understand  yet  its 
interpretation.  Now  it  is  lifted  up,  it  stands  below  the  con¬ 
stellation  of  the  Chariot  in  the  path  of  Enlil,  and  its  inter¬ 
pretation  is  completed  for  this  position  but  not  for  the  earlier. 
When  Jupiter  meets  eclipse,  it  will  be  well  with  the  king,  the 
family  of  the  nobility  will  be  powerful,  the  decrepit  will  cease. 
Venus  has  established  its  appearance  at  sunrise,  it  is  fixed,  it 
entered  in  the  middle  of  April.  Rites  for  Dilbat  or  Venus  are 
regularly  carried  on  in  conjunction  with  those  for  other  god¬ 
desses.  The  king  has  inquired  about  Mercury;  yesterday 
Ishtar-shum-eresh  proclaimed  in  the  palace  its  going  forth 
to  Nabu-ahe-eriba.  The  signs  of  the  rest  day  have  come,  all 
have  been  observed,  they  have  passed  off.  Such  is  the  report 
of  Balasi.  Mars  is  dominant,  its  brilliance  is  increasing;  if 
the  crown  prince  should  enter  before  the  king,  some  harm 
might  befall.2 

1  See  p.  378.  2  H.  744;  46;  82;  23;  993;  354;  356. 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 


593 


Each  of  the  seven  planets  had  its  own  path  in  the  heavens, 
though  all  were  close  together.  Perhaps  each  had  a  separate 
sphere.  Beyond  them  were  the  stars  proper,  and  all  were  in 
a  sort  of  celestial  sphere,  or  perhaps  rather  three  spheres.  The 
description  of  the  celestial  sphere  as  it  is  taught  to  beginners 
to-day  would  have  been  intelligible  in  large  part  to  the  ancient 
Babylonians.  They  would  have  understood  horizon  and  me¬ 
ridian,  celestial  equator  and  poles,  and  they  knew  the  path  of 
the  ecliptic.  Right  ascension  and  declination  would  have 
puzzled  them  rather  as  terms  than  as  factors  of  measurement, 
for  they  too  knew  the  vernal  equinox  with  which  they  logically 
began  their  year,  and  one  of  their  systems  of  measurement 
divided  the  celestial  sphere  into  three  hundred  and  sixty  de¬ 
grees.  This  last  we  have  been  unable  to  improve.  They  knew 
that  only  at  the  two  equinoxes  were  day  and  night  equal,  and 
they  had  calculated  the  average  at  other  periods.  Since  the 
earliest  observations,  the  equinoxes  had  made  a  long  move¬ 
ment;  while  the  vernal  equinox  in  Assyrian  times  was  in  the 
sign  of  the  Ram,  there  were  plenty  of  observations  before  the 
first  dynasty  of  Babylon  when  it  was  in  the  sign  of  the  Bull, 
and  one  at  least,  that  on  the  so-called  astrolabe,  was  in  the 
sign  of  the  Twins. 

We  best  realise  the  likeness  to  our  own  “  Astronomy  with¬ 
out  the  Telescope”  when  we  turn  to  the  stars.  The  “as¬ 
trolabe”  in  its  present  badly  copied  form  dates  from  the  time 
of  Ashur-bani-apal,  but  the  star  positions  have  been  calculated 
for  4864  or  thereabouts.  The  chief  fixed  stars  are  arranged 
in  three  concentric  circles,  belonging  to  Anu,  Enlil,  and  Ea, 
respectively.  Around  the  edge  are  the  names  of  the  twelve 
months,  and  each  month  has  three  stars  attributed  to  it,  one 
for  each  heaven  and  god.  Each  star  is  given  its  proper  degree; 
in  the  outer  ring  this  is  based  on  a  complete  circle  of  two 
hundred  and  forty  degrees,  in  the  middle  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty,  in  the  inner  of  sixty.  More  generally,  the  circle  of 
three  hundred  and  sixty  degrees  is  used,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
“trip  among  the  stars,”  in  which  distances  from  one  constella¬ 
tion  to  another  are  given  within  five  degrees  and  with  a  really 


594 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


remarkable  exactness,  once  the  changed  position  of  the  stars 
is  reckoned  with.  Fragments  of  star  maps  draw  lines  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  those  on  our  maps  to-day  or  stars  are  grouped 
into  triangles,  squares,  or  “ wagons.7’ 

Superficial  examination  is  enough  to  indicate  that  these  are 
no  rough  estimates  made  by  the  eye  alone.  The  meridian  was 
very  simply  learned  by  means  of  a  ziqpu  instrument  through 
which  the  north  star  was  sighted,  naturally  quite  another  than 
ours,  for  about  the  time  of  Hammurabi  it  was  alpha  of  the 
Dragon.  The  observer  took  his  position  just  before  sunrise, 
facing  the  south,  and  noted  that  at  this  moment  a  certain 
star  culminated  “in  the  midst  of  heaven/7  that  is,  on  the  me¬ 
ridian,  or  was  just  rising  heliacally.  Stars  which  might  thus 
be  observed  were  called  specifically  ziqpu  stars  and  belonged 
to  the  Enlil  way.  By  computing  stellar  distances,  the  other 
stars  might  be  placed,  especially  by  noting  those  which  rose 
or  set  at  the  moment  the  determining  star  was  at  the  meridian. 

A  second  machine  was  the  water-clock,  which  was  probably 
already  in  operation  in  the  Assyrian  period.  For  a  complete 
day  of  twenty-four  hours,  a  talent  or  something  like  sixty 
pounds  of  water  was  permitted  to  flow  through.  Measure¬ 
ment  of  elapsed  time  was  then  reckoned  in  weight,  down  to 
ten  shekels  of  water,  the  equivalent  of  four  minutes.  Time 
was  in  turn  translated  into  degrees,  the  same  as  ours,  on  the 
circle  of  three  hundred  and  sixty,  and  in  this  manner  the  right 
ascension  of  stars  along  the  equator  was  found. 

Some  other  machine  must  further  be  assumed,  perhaps 
some  sort  of  an  armilla,  for  we  have  equally  close  reckonings 
of  the  stars  along  the  ecliptic  which  could  have  been  secured 
only  by  some  such  means.  For  instance,  a  fragmentary  tablet 
exists  with  pictures  of  the  zodiacal  signs,  of  which  are  pre¬ 
served  the  Virgin,  winged  and  with  the  ears  of  grain,  the  Scales, 
and  the  Scorpion,  also  with  the  appropriate  symbols.  Each 
has  thirty  vertical  lines,  corresponding  to  the  thirty  degrees 
included  within  the  signs.  The  position  of  a  star  is  marked 
by  a  horizontal  line  over  one  of  these  vertical  lines.  The  sign 
for  the  Scales  is  over  what  would  correspond  to  one  hundred 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 


595 


and  eighty-six  degrees,  and  this  is  exactly  where  the  chief  star 
of  the  Scales  was  about  800. 

Not  content  merely  to  reckon  in  degrees,  Babylonian  as¬ 
tronomers  must  often  have  asked  the  same  question  which  is 
regularly  put  to  their  successors:  “What  is  the  star  distance 
in  units  whose  meaning  we  can  grasp  ?”  So  they  translated 
the  degrees  into  double  hours,  each  degree  containing  one 
thousand  eight  hundred,  with  a  total  of  six  hundred  and  fifty- 
five  thousand  two  hundred.  If  these  are  taken  as  earthly 
measurements  and  if  we  estimate  the  average  double  hour  as 
something  between  seven  and  eight  miles,  the  circuit  of  the 
ecliptic  and  therefore  the  circumference  of  the  universe  comes 
to  little  less  than  five  million  miles.  Modest  as  it  is  in  com¬ 
parison  with  the  modern  light-year,  this  was  a  tremendous 
and  awe-inspiring  universe.  Astronomers  who  were  accus¬ 
tomed  to  calculate  distances  between  two  such  closely  con¬ 
nected  stars  as  the  Twins  at  over  fifty  thousand  miles  would 
be  easily  brought  to  a  mood  where  they  might  exclaim  with 
the  Hebrew  psalmist:  “What  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful 
of  him?” 

Turning  to  the  star  map,  there  are  many  old  friends.  In¬ 
dividual  mistakes  in  identification  there  may  well  be  and  not 
all  are  accepted  by  all  the  little  group  which  has  studied  Baby¬ 
lonian  astronomy,  but  in  recent  years  men  of  different  schools 
have  come  to  a  substantial  agreement  in  most  respects.  Cas¬ 
siopeia  is  already  close  to  the  Pole,  a  somewhat  different  Pole, 
to  be  sure,  she  “stands  the  whole  year  in  the  heavens,”  though 
she  is  the  “Irrigator,”  and  the  Dipper  bears  its  alternate  name 
of  the  Wain.  The  Capricorn,  with  his  human  head  and  fishy 
tail,  is  there,  as  in  the  seacoast  sculptures  of  Sargon  or  as  he 
was  cast  into  the  sea  by  Sennacherib.  The  Snake  and  the 
Scorpion  threaten  from  the  heavens,  as  do  the  Lion,  the  Wolf, 
and  the  Eagle;  the  various  Fish  may  still  be  caught,  the  Twins 
are  together. 

These  are  easily  identified.  Others  appear  under  unfamiliar 
names,  but  we  begin  to  be  certain  of  their  location.  Sirius  is 
the  Arrow;  the  Sirius  year  is  very  early  in  Babylonia,  and  there 


596 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


may  be  connection  with  the  similar  year  of  Egypt.  The  Star 
pre-eminently  is  the  Pleiades,  Orion  is  the  True  Shepherd  of 
the  Heaven,  the  Lynx  was  earlier  the  Boar,  Aldebaran  is  the 
Fire.  These  seem  certain,  but  the  list  might  be  much  extended 
did  we  accept  plausible  identifications. 

Planets  and  stars  are  in  the  distant  vault  of  heaven;  what 
is  their  relation  to  the  earth  ?  The  earth,  so  a  Babylonian  map 
reveals  to  us,  was  conceived  of  as  a  flat  object,  cut  by  the  Per¬ 
sian  Gulf  and  the  two  great  rivers,  and  encircled  by  the  waters 
of  death,  whence  came  the  springs  of  the  earth,  and  beyond 
were  the  lands  of  mythology.  Below  was  the  underworld, 
above  were  the  heavens,  quite  literally  in  the  plural.  Some 
of  the  stars  never  left  their  place  above,  others  descended  for 
known  periods  into  the  underworld,  thence  to  emerge  in  due 
season. 

The  question  now  arises  how  much  was  known  in  the  As¬ 
syrian  period  and  what  of  new  was  then  produced.  Already 
the  wisdom  of  the  ancients  had  been  largely  codified,  but  we 
dare  not  judge  the  astronomical  knowledge  of  the  time  by  the 
minimum  of  any  given  tablet,  since  the  scribes  copied  records 
of  various  ages  without  discrimination,  and  often  the  position 
of  the  stars  can  be  shown  to  belong  to  a  far  earlier  century. 
But  a  reading  of  the  whole  of  the  preserved  literature  shows  a 
fair  number  which  belong  by  computation  to  our  era.  The 
tablet  with  the  zodiacal  signs  must  be  placed  about  800,  and 
in  the  last  Assyrian  century  belongs  the  so-called  planisphere, 
with  its  seven  stars  of  Cassiopeia  and  its  plan  of  the  Twins 
and  the  Bull.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  exclude  certain 
improvements  made  under  the  Chaldsean  dynasty  and  the 
still  greater  changes  after  contact  with  the  Greeks. 

Some  of  the  astronomical  texts  approach  closely  to  pure 
science,  but  the  practical  purpose  of  star  study  was  not  to 
give  direction  or  to  correct  the  calendar,  but  to  predict  the 
future.  Our  documents  show  scarcely  a  trace  of  the  usage, 
so  common  among  the  “Chaldseans”  of  late  Greek  or  Roman 
times,  of  securing  the  horoscope  of  the  individual  from  the 
stars.  Earlier  generations  were  convinced  that  such  mys- 


DIVINE  MYSTERIES 


597 


terious,  far-distant,  powerful  beings  could  be  interested  only  in 
the  fate  of  nations,  and  the  preceding  extracts  from  the  letters 
will  show  how  often  the  stars  were  consulted  for  this  purpose.1 

1  There  is  no  trustworthy  account  of  Babylonian  astronomy  in  English.  The 
more  purely  astronomical  texts  are  collected  by  Weidner,  Beitrdge  zur  Kenntniss 
den  babylonischen  Astronomie,  to  which  must  be  added  the  letters  in  the  Harper 
collection,  translated  by  Professor  Waterman,  and  those  in  Thompson,  Reports 
of  the  Astrologers  and  Magicians.  The  huge  astrological  corpus  has  been  collected 
by  Virolleaud,  Astrologie  chaldeenne.  Kugler,  Sternkunde ,  is  primarily  devoted 
to  the  post-Assyrian  period. 


CHAPTER  X L VI 


OUR  LORD  KING 

No  monarch  rules  the  Arabian  waste.  Each  little  tribal 
group  has  its  chief,  a  man  of  good  family  and  some  wealth 
who  enjoys  the  empty  honour  of  offering  hospitality  to  all 
and  sundry  who  may  seek  his  tent.  When  there  is  talk  of  a 
raid,  he  may  be  chosen  leader  if  he  is  thought  worthy;  other¬ 
wise,  the  best  warrior  will  lead  the  raiders.  The  war-chief 
has  the  higher  honour  and  a  larger  portion  of  the  spoil,  but 
there  is  no  guarantee  that  he  will  hold  the  chief  place.  Should 
at  any  time  any  individual  resent  the  leadership  of  his  chief, 
he  has  only  to  remove  his  tent  from  the  encampment  and  be 
first  man  among  such  as  may  be  persuaded  to  accept  his  own. 
The  desert  knows  no  laws  and  ordinances,  only  immemorial 
custom,  enforced  by  weight  of  public  opinion.  It  is  the  mother 
of  self-help,  individualism,  and  democracy. 

The  conquest  of  the  Fertile  Crescent  brought  the  nomad 
into  contact  with  a  totally  different  theory  and  practice.  We 
of  the  present  find  it  extremely  difficult  to  understand  the 
psychical  environment  in  which  king-worship  can  grow  up. 
For  its  full  fruition  somewhat  peculiar  conditions  are  required. 
The  reign  of  primitive  spirits  must  be  left  behind,  the  gods 
must  be  clear-cut,  a  hierarchy  and  a  king  of  the  gods  are  de¬ 
manded.  From  a  very  early  time  the  Shumerians  had  pos¬ 
sessed  conceptions  which  gave  promise  of  such  a  development. 
City-state  and  god  were  identical.  In  the  Shumerian  writing, 
Nippur  is  “town  of  the  god  Enlil,”  the  chief  god  of  Lagash  is 
the  “lord  of  Girsu,”  one  of  its  component  parts,  Nannar  is 
called  “king  of  Ur.”  One  of  the  commonest  phrases  in  the 
royal  dedications  is  “To  such  and  such  a  god,  my  king.” 

Since  the  local  deity  was  the  ruler  of  the  state,  nay,  the  very 
state  itself,  he  was  naturally  conceived  as  owner  as  well  as 
ruler  of  all  that  it  possessed.  In  so  many  words,  we  are  told 

598 


OUR  LORD  KING 


599 


that  the  various  states  are  the  property  of  their  respective 
deities.  Not  temples  alone  are  erected  for  his  divinity;  city 
walls  and  new  suburbs  likewise  increase  his  patrimony.  Under 
these  circumstances,  the  patesi  is  but  the  deputy  of  the  god, 
the  chosen  of  the  divinity,  the  beloved  of  his  heart,  whose 
name  has  been  called  by  him. 

As  yet,  there  was  little  loss  to  the  ruler  in  this  dependence 
upon  the  god.  The  priesthood  was  not  predominant,  religion 
was  still  in  large  part  a  mere  department  of  the  state,  and  the 
patesi  was  the  personal  representative  of  the  god.  As  such, 
his  welfare  was  identified  with  that  of  the  deity  himself  and 
of  the  state  under  his  rule,  and  rebellion  against  him  was  re¬ 
bellion  against  the  deity.  Since  all  things  material  belonged 
to  the  city-god,  by  the  same  process  of  reasoning  all  things 
material  belonged  to  his  deputy.  In  this  conception  we  have 
the  ancestor  and  prototype  of  the  manorial  system,  according 
to  which  the  land  is  the  personal  property  of  the  monarch, 
and  its  tillers  pay  him  rent  and  not  taxes. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  there  is  no  proof  that  the  Shume- 
rians  took  the  final  step  which  brought  about  king-worship. 
It  was  the  Semitic  invaders,  with  the  zeal  of  new  converts, 
who  made  themselves  deities  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  They 
placed  before  their  names  the  star  which  marked  divinity 
and  accepted  such  statements  as  “Naram  Sin  is  the  god  of 
Agade.”  The  time  came  when  human  kings  ruled  over  more 
than  the  alluvium,  over  more  than  was  included  in  the  land 
once  ruled  by  the  supreme  god  Enlil  himself.  It  was  an  easy 
step  to  argue  that  the  mighty  hero  was  at  least  the  equal  of 
the  gods.  Political  and  personal  considerations  undoubtedly 
contributed  to  the  movement.  Vassals  might  not  believe  in 
the  immortality  of  rulers  they  saw  eating  and  drinking  and 
suffering  like  themselves,  but  flattery  might  secure  promotion; 
kings  might  not  be  quite  sure  of  their  divinity,  but  it  eased 
the  difficulties  of  government.  And  it  is  a  truism  that  men 
soon  come  to  belief  in  their  own  hocus-pocus. 

When  men  acted  as  though  their  monarchs  were  gods,  it 
was  not  long  before  they  or  their  children  were  persuaded 


600 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


that  there  was  something  of  the  divine  in  the  hero  who  had 
conquered  distant  lands  and  had  given  them  internal  peace. 
The  ruler  likewise  soon  came  to  believe  that  had  he  not  in  him 
something  of  the  divine,  far  above  the  average  of  the  common 
herd,  he  could  not  have  been  the  hero  he  undoubtedly  was. 

Under  the  Ur  dynasty  and  in  the  reign  of  Dungi,  we  have 
the  culmination  of  the  idea  of  the  deification  of  the  reigning 
monarch.  Servile  courtiers  named  their  children  from  him, 
identifying  him  with  the  god  Babbar  or  giving  them  such  names 
as  “The  god  Dungi  is  my  god,”  “The  god  Dungi  is  my  crea¬ 
tor.”  His  official  inscriptions  call  him  “god  of  his  land,”  to 
him  was  erected  the  temple  E  Dungi,  the  appointment  of  his 
chief  priest  dated  the  year  as  did  the  installation  of  a  priest 
for  any  of  the  great  gods,  a  feast  was  celebrated  in  his  honour 
and  from  it  was  named  a  new  month,  and  offerings  were  pre¬ 
sented  at  his  shrine.  In  his  honour  men  recited  hymns  blessing 
him  as  the  Lord  who  made  glad  the  land,  who  caused  songs  of 
peace  to  be  sung  in  the  Lower  Land,  and  wailing  in  the  Upper. 
The  god  Dungi  is  the  “God-King,”  whose  name  excels  every 
other  name,  whether  the  name  of  Enlil,  of  Enzu,  or  of  Bab¬ 
bar.1 

With  the  west  Semitic  dynasty  of  Nisin,  the  kings  continue 
to  be  considered  gods.  One  of  its  kings,  Idin  Dagan,  is  mar¬ 
ried  through  his  statue  with  the  statue  of  the  mother  goddess. 
In  one  of  the  liturgies,  five  kings  from  Idin  Dagan  to  Bur  Sin 
are  identified  with  the  sleeping  Tammuz  and  no  fruit  grows 
in  the  gardens.  Hammurabi  not  only  receives  his  law  code 
from  Shamash,  as  Moses  did  from  Yahweh;  he  is  himself  the 
“Shamash  of  Babylon,”  the  “god  of  kings”;  his  subordinates 
say  of  him  “Llammurabi  is  god.” 

Assyria  took  over  the  custom  as  a  matter  of  course.  Tig- 
lath  Pileser’s  statue  is  listed  among  those  of  the  gods  and  the 
sign  for  god  often  preceded  the  king’s  statue.  Ashur-nasir- 
apaTs  statue  has  actually  been  found  with  its  altar  before  it.2 
Ahaz  of  Judah  set  up  the  altar  to  the  Assyrian  king  in  Jeru¬ 
salem,  and  it  must  be  included  among  the  images  worshipped 
1 AJSL.,  XXXV,  74  ff .  2  Cf.  p.  103. 


OUR  LORD  KING 


601 


by  Manasseh.1  Installation  of  a  statue  of  the  king  by  the  side 
of  Ashur  is  noted  throughout  the  history.  Tammaritu  speaks 
of  the  king’s  spirit  in  terms  equivalent  to  those  which  would 
be  used  by  a  Roman  when  speaking  of  the  emperor’s  genius.2 
Even  the  crown  prince  was  felt  to  possess  this  same  sacred¬ 
ness,  for  we  have  the  proper  name  Mar-sharri-belia,  “the  crown 
prince  is  my  god.”  On  the  long  road  from  prehistoric  king- 
godship  to  the  divine  ruler  of  Hellenistic  or  imperial  Roman 
times  and  to  the  divine  right  of  kings  so  sadly  shattered  in 
our  own  day,  one  of  the  most  significant  stopping-places  is 
the  Assyrian  Empire. 

In  Babylonia  the  priests  had  long  since  won  the  upper  hand, 
in  Assyria  the  god-king  was  more  powerful  and  his  country 
never  became  priest-ridden.  In  the  south  palace  and  temple 
were  in  separate  quarters,  in  the  north  the  temple  was  fre¬ 
quently  a  mere  adjunct  to  the  palace.  Certain  of  the  kings, 
Tiglath  Pileser  III  and  Sennacherib  in  particular,  were  dis¬ 
tinctly  antihierarchical  in  their  attitude. 

Yet  it  was  not  all  pleasure  to  be  the  god-king  and  the  head 
of  the  official  religion;  there  were  duties  as  well  as  privileges. 
For  example,  the  7th,  14th,  19th,  21st,  and  28th  days  of  the 
month  are  evil  days  when  the  “shepherd  of  a  mighty  people” 
is  not  permitted  to  eat  any  food  that  is  cooked,  clothe  himself 
with  a  clean  garment,  or  ride  in  his  chariot.  He  may  not  even 
make  an  offering  until  evening  when  he  shall  pour  a  libation, 
and  the  lifting  up  of  his  hands  will  then  please  the  gods  and 
goddesses  to  whom  the  particular  day  is  dedicated. 

On  these  days,  the  seer  should  not  give  an  oracle,  even  in  a 
secret  place;  the  physician  should  not  lay  his  hand  on  a  sick 
man — even  for  laying  a  curse  it  is  unsuitable.  The  remarkable 
coincidence  of  four  of  these  with  the  Hebrew  seven-day  week, 
the  possible  explanation  of  the  nineteenth  as  a  week  of  weeks, 
seven  times  seven  from  the  first  of  the  previous  month,  has 
often  been  observed.  It  has  been  found  that  the  middle  of  the 
month  was  called  Shabatum  and  this  may  be  the  same  word 
as  the  Sabbath,  since  it  is  called  a  “day  of  rest  for  the  heart,” 
1  Cf.  pp.  198,  379.  2  H.  943;  cf.  p.  463. 


602 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


a  “day  of  atonement/’  and  this  seems  to  have  been  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  Shabbathon,  the  predecessor  of  the  Hebrew  Sab¬ 
bath.  The  interest  of  these  speculations  should  not  prevent 
our  realising  the  part  these  ceremonies  play  in  reducing  the 
despotism  of  the  king.1 

New  Year’s  Day  was  a  particularly  unpleasant  time,  when 
he  must  play  the  peasant  and  fast  for  the  good  of  his  people 
till  the  new  moon  appeared.  We  can  fairly  see  the  two  re¬ 
ligious  leaders  with  their  tongues  in  their  cheeks  when  the 
opportunity  is  presented  to  read  a  lesson  of  religious  control 
to  the  young  Ashur-bani-apal.  Though  the  day  has  ended, 
the  new  moon  has  not  yet  been  seen;  the  king  may  not  eat 
or  drink  until  it  does  appear,  and  there  is  more  than  a  hint 
of  insolence  veiled  behind  the  obsequiousness  of  the  formulas 
when  they  suggest  that  after  the  moon  is  really  observed  he 
may  eat  bread  and  drink  wine  the  whole  year  through.2 

Closely  connected  with  his  position  as  head  of  religion  was 
that  of  judge.  As  we  have  seen  in  a  preceding  chapter,3  there 
was  an  elaborate  and  distinctive  law  code,  where  self-help  was 
strictly  limited,  where  royal  officials  were  in  large  part  neces¬ 
sary  to  legal  action,  where  crimes  were  often  punished  by  in¬ 
duction  into  the  royal  service.  The  few  tablets  which  have 
survived  to  present  the  legal  side  of  the  Assyrian  life  show 
the  functioning  of  a  chief  judge  or  sartennu,  as  well  as  the 
judicial  activities  of  the  majority  of  the  higher  officials.  The 
king  always  remained  the  ultimate  court  of  appeal,  and  the 
letters  frequently  show  such  appeal  to  the  king  and  his  taking 
over  the  case. 

No  doubt,  the  typical  Assyrian  felt  that  his  monarch  was 
primarily  a  general,  just  as  the  Roman  received  his  title  of 
emperor  from  the  imperator.  No  campaign  of  importance 
should  be  wraged  without  the  presence  of  the  king  in  person, 
and  if  he  were  not  present,  courtly  fiction  still  preserved  the 
pretence.  There  was  no  regular  army  in  the  earlier  days,  for 
the  levy  was  called  out  each  year.  When  a  crisis  appeared, 
the  whole  available  force  of  citizens  might  be  summoned  to 


XIV  R.,  32  f.;  Rogers,  Parallels,  189. 


3Cf.  p.  550. 


2  H.  78. 


Fig.  171.  ASSYRIAN  CAMP  AND  SOLDIERS.  Fig.  172.  UNDERGROUND  STAIRS. 

(Louvre.)  (Fort  in  Asia  Minor.) 


OUR  LORD  KING 


603 


march  under  the  royal  standard.  Normally,  there  was  no 
regret  at  the  call,  the  levies  were  protecting  their  own  crops 
from  the  wandering  people  of  steppe  or  mountain,  there  was 
booty  to  be  secured,  indi¬ 
viduals  might  be  chosen  to 
settle  new  posts  and  as  colo¬ 
nists  to  lord  it  over  the 
native  population. 

Peasants  were  liable  to 
the  levy  until  the  end  of 
the  empire,  but  the  state 
grew  too  large  for  the  blood 
tribute  to  be  inflicted  with¬ 
out  serious  disorganisation 
of  agriculture  and  trade. 

Governors  raised  the  armies 
they  needed  for  local  opera¬ 
tions  or  sent  their  troops 
to  the  aid  of  their  sovereign, 
and  now  and  then  client 
princes  forwarded  their  con¬ 
tingents.  But  the  extent 
of  the  empire  made  revolt 
a  certainty  unless  this  was 
supplemented  by  a  regular 
standing  army.  Our  first  in¬ 
dication  that  such  an  army 
was  in  process  of  formation 
comes  in  the  reign  of  the 
last  Tiglath  Pileser,  but  it 
was  Sargon  who  brought  the 
“ royal  army”  to  perfection. 

Closest  to  the  royal  person  were  his  “Companions,”  the 
highest  nobility  of  the  land.  Special  detachments  of  body¬ 
guards  surrounded  the  king,  the  queen  mother,  the  queen 
consort,  the  crown  prince.  Often  they  were  used  for  special 
services,  as  bearers  of  royal  rescripts,  for  transport  of  prisoners, 


Fig.  173.  ASSYRIAN  STANDARD. 


604 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


for  anything  which  demanded  a  confidential  mission.  A  thou¬ 
sand  picked  soldiers  were  the  troops  “of  his  feet/ 7  so  called 
because  literally  at  the  feet  of  the  monarch  as  he  rode  his  high 
chariot. 

Chariots  had  been  the  main  force  of  the  king  in  the  first 
Assyrian  Empire,  and  the  charioteers  remained  the  elite  corps 
throughout  the  whole  history.  As  the  Assyrians  began  to 
penetrate  the  mountains,  they  found  it  necessary  to  cut  roads 
for  the  chariots,  and  even  then  it  was  not  always  possible  to 
lead  them  into  the  innermost  recesses.  Horses  were  becoming 
better  known,  and  by  the  time  of  Ashur-nasir-apal  cavalry 
appear  in  great  numbers.  A  majority  of  the  troops  was  made 
up  of  foot-soldiers,  bowmen  and  lancers,  with  partners  to  hold 
the  heavy  shields  before  them.  Pioneers  formed  a  very  im¬ 
portant  part  of  the  army,  and  we  have  had  frequent  occasion 
to  note  their  labours;  less  is  said  of  the  commissariat,  but  this 
was  in  large  part  secured  on  the  spot,  for  the  Assyrians  were 
past  masters  in  the  art  of  making  war  pay  for  itself. 

The  squad  of  ten  under  a  non-commissioned  officer  was  the 
smallest  unit,  but  the  normal  tactical  unit  was  the  kisru,  or 
company,  of  from  fifty  to  perhaps  two  hundred,  under  the 
rab  kisir,  or  captain.  At  the  head  of  the  army  was  the 
rab  shaqe,  unless  the  turtanu  or  the  king  took  charge  of  the 
expedition  in  person. 

Whatever  part  the  native  levies  played  in  the  standing  army, 
it  tended  more  and  more  to  be  filled  with  foreigners.  Constant 
warfare  had  killed  off  the  old  sturdy  peasantry,  and  their  place 
was  ill  taken  by  deported  captives.  The  necessity  of  keeping 
down  the  native  population,  the  guarding  against  revolt  by 
too  efficient  nobles,  the  danger  of  banditry  or  worse  from  the 
dispersal  of  conquered  armies,  led  Assyrian  kings,  from  Sargon 
onwards,  to  incorporate  wholesale  enemy  forces  into  their  own. 
Preceding  pages  afford  frequent  examples  of  such  incorpora¬ 
tion,  and  letters  and  documents  show  numerous  cases  where 
soldiers  and  even  officers  bear  foreign  names  or  are  frankly 
recognised  as  belonging  to  some  foreign  country.  Such  a  name 
as  “He  knew  not  his  father”  is  especially  significant  when  we 


OUR  LORD  KING 


605 


find  it  assigned  to  a  Chaldsean  who  was  body-guard,  equally  so 
when  we  learn  of  the  promotion  of  a  man  from  Tabal  to  a 
captaincy. 

Assyrian  sculptures  show  us  the  equipment  of  these  war¬ 
riors.  The  bow  was  the  chief  weapon  of  offence,  whether  the 
soldier  rode  in  a  chariot,  was  on  horseback,  or  on  foot.  A  small 
proportion  only  bore  lances,  a  few  were  slingers.  Swords  were 
rare,  the  common  weapon  being  a  dagger.  Shields  grew  ever 
larger  until  one  demanded  the  whole  attention  of  a  squire  to 
protect  his  companion.  Pointed  helmets  and  coats  of  mail 
were  worn  by  man  and  beast. 

Warfare  as  carried  on  by  the  Assyrians  would  not  be  com¬ 
plete  without  account  of  the  “artillery,”  the  battering-rams 
and  tanks,  so  often  represented  in  the  sculptures.  Escalade 
formed  a  common  method  of  attack  and  Sennacherib  boasts  of 
the  “great  flies  of  the  walls.”  Mounds  of  circumvallation  were 
commonly  used,  as  were  wooden  banks  against  the  city.  We 
know  little  of  Assyrian  tactics,  although  we  may  sure  they 
were  superior,  but  the  strategy  we  can  test  from  the  to¬ 
pography.  Under  geographical  compulsion,  their  campaigns 
were  often  exact  prototypes  of  those  fought  in  the  Near  East 
in  the  last  century. 

Division  of  function  between  military  and  civil  officials 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  existed  in  Assyria.  The  turtanu 
corresponded  in  a  very  real  sense  to  the  grand  vizier  of  the 
Arab  or  Turkish  Empire,  who  in  turn  was  something  of  a  chan¬ 
cellor  or  prime  minister,  but  he  also  was  in  earlier  days  com¬ 
mander-in-chief  of  the  army  when  the  king  was  not  himself 
in  charge,  and  he  was  the  governor  of  Harran,  the  former 
kingdom  of  Mitanni.  When  the  turtanu  became  too  power¬ 
ful,  his  position  as  commander-in-chief  was  taken  by  the  rab 
shaqe,  whose  title  literally  means  “chief  cupbearer.”  In  the 
lists  of  eponyms,  the  king  and  the  turtanu  are  followed  by  the 
rab  bappiri,  or  “chief  cellarer,”  or  the  nagir  ekalli,  the  “cham¬ 
berlain  of  the  palace,”  and  they  by  the  abarakku,  perhaps 
the  lotion-maker,  while  less-important  offices  were  filled  by 
the  chief  cook  or  the  chief  trencherman.  More  specifically 


606 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


head  of  the  court  proper  was  “he  who  was  over  the 
palace.” 

The  great  advance  made  by  the  Assyrians  in  administration 
was  the  development  of  a  provincial  system.  Empires  before 
them  had  been  formed  by  the  personal  union  of  two  or  more 
states,  over  each  of  which  the  king  ruled  by  a  separate  royal 
title.  Less-closely  held  states  were  governed  by  local  kings 
with  considerable  autonomy,  though  under  the  Ur  dynasty 
these  patesis  sunk  to  mere  governors.  Assyrian  kings  still 
pacified  the  most  ancient  states  of  the  alluvium  by  this  pre¬ 
tence  of  home  rule  and  by  the  assumption  of  the  particular 
royal  title  connected  with  that  particular  city-state,  and  they 
also  called  themselves  “kings  of  kings,”  for  they  did  rule  sub¬ 
ordinate  kings  of  the  buffer  states  on  the  frontier.  Such  de¬ 
pendent  kings  were  controlled  by  a  qepu,  or  “resident,”  who 
might  deliver  orders  from  home,  or  by  a  wife  who  had  been  a 
member  of  the  Assyrian  king’s  harem. 

Provinces  already  existed  as  early  as  the  middle  of  the 
second  millennium.  First  in  rank  was  the  shakin  mati,  or 
“governor  of  the  land,”  who  ruled  Ashur;  then,  as  each  con¬ 
quered  territory  was  reduced  to  provincial  form,  its  ruler  was 
placed  in  the  list  of  eponyms.  The  second  period  of  provin¬ 
cial  government  begins  with  the  reign  of  Shalmaneser  III, 
and  the  number  and  character  of  the  provinces  continued  vir¬ 
tually  unchanged  until  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  who  much  reduced 
their  size  and  importance,  until  their  area  barely  reached  that 
of  the  subdivisions  of  a  province  in  the  previous  period.  Thus 
the  danger  of  revolt  from  an  overvigorous  governor  was  les¬ 
sened,  but  there  still  remained  too  many  cities  of  the  first  class, 
too  many  frontiers  with  the  most  serious  problems  to  com¬ 
pletely  debase  the  provincial  power,  and  the  letters  in  nearly 
every  case  witness  to  the  high  position  and  skilful  action  of 
these  governors.  Occasionally,  after  a  crisis,  we  find  a  Bel- 
ibni  who  is  viceroy  in  all  but  name. 

Powerful  as  these  governors  sometimes  were,  the  court  kept 
careful  check  upon  them.  Shamash,  through  the  liver  omens, 
was  regularly  consulted  about  their  appointment,  and  unfor- 


OUR  LORD  KING 


607 


tunate  indeed  was  the  official  when  the  sacrificed  sheep  pos¬ 
sessed  a  liver  with  marks  of  ill  omen.  Once  in  his  province, 
he  was  not  left  to  slumber  in  peace  or  to  oppress  the  provin¬ 
cials  or  to  prepare  revolt.  He  must  report  each  event,  no  mat¬ 
ter  how  unimportant,  to  his  royal  master,  and  the  delay  of  a 
single  day  demanded  a  painful  excuse.  His  subordinates  were 
always  ready  to  point  out  his  shortcomings  or  sins  in  the  hope 
of  obtaining  promotion  for  themselves,  and  his  subjects  made 
their  complaints  direct  to  the  king,  who  then  would  send  a 
sharp  “ royal  word”  to  the  luckless  official.  At  any  moment, 
a  member  of  the  king’s  body-guard  might  turn  up  with  a  repri¬ 
mand,  with  the  order  for  recall,  or  with  instructions  to  put 
him  quietly  out  of  the  way.  Ashur-bani-apal’s  quarrels  with 
Bel-ibni  will  illustrate  every  phase  of  a  governor’s  worries. 

Chief  among  the  duties  of  the  governor  was  the  collection 
of  the  tribute.  He  must  see  that  the  subject  kings  on  his  bor¬ 
ders  brought  in  their  yearly  gifts  of  grain  or  animals,  he  must 
oversee  in  person  the  collection  of  those  many  taxes  under 
which  the  serf  or  the  member  of  the  lower  classes  groaned. 
He  must  pay  all  the  expenses  of  his  own  government,  and  still 
have  enough  for  the  dues  to  the  great  temples  of  the  Assyrian 
capitals  and  for  the  upkeep  of  the  court.  One  list  has  pre¬ 
served  the  yearly  contributions  of  a  few  of  the  provinces.  Car- 
chemish  must  pay  the  truly  enormous  sum  of  two  talents  of 
gold  and  a  hundred  of  silver.  Arpad  and  Que  pay  thirty  talents 
of  silver  and  Megiddo  and  Mansuate  the  half  of  that  amount. 
Centre  Nineveh  gave  thirty  talents,  Suburb  Nineveh  twenty, 
the  New  Quarter  ten,  the  Queen’s  House  twenty.  New  Kalhu 
paid  but  five  and  Suburb  Kalhu  but  four,  showing  how  Kalhu 
had  fallen  since  it  was  abandoned  by  Sennacherib.1 

A  letter  from  an  unknown  correspondent  indicates  how  the 
taxes  from  one  province  were  divided.  Two  talents,  twenty 
pounds  of  silver,  clothing  and  elephant  hides,  fifty  chitons 
and  gowns,  three  jars  of  the  lesser  measure  containing  fish, 
twenty  vessels  of  fish,  one  hundred  fish,  these  are  the  tribute 
(madattu),  while  a  crown  of  gold,  twenty  plates  of  silver,  four 

1  J.  951;  953. 


608 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


large  gowns,  fifteen  tent  covers  from  Hasa,  ten  chitons,  ten 
large  gowns,  these  are  the  taxes  (nahartu)  of  the  palace.  Lesser 
amounts  go  to  the  “ palace  lady/7  and  still  less  to  the  various 
court  officials.1 

Assyrian  imperialism  was  in  several  respects  quite  different 
from  what  we  know  by  that  name  to-day.  Religious  imperial¬ 
ism  has  disappeared,  though  agnostic  statesmen  may  pro¬ 
claim  a  war  in  the  name  of  the  national  God  and  the  protec¬ 
tion  of  missionaries  may  be  the  excuse  for  filching  a  province. 
We  must  at  the  least  credit  the  Assyrian  with  honesty  when 
he  carried  on  war  in  the  name  of  Ashur,  for  to  him  the  whole 
progress  of  Assyrian  expansion  was  the  triumph  of  the  deified 
fatherland.  To  the  extent  that  all  states  must  acknowledge 
Ashur  chief  and  father  of  the  gods,  the  Assyrians  were  per¬ 
fectly  prepared  to  act  the  armed  missionary.  Beyond  this, 
they  cared  little  to  impose  their  own  culture.  We  have  not  a 
trace  of  any  effort  to  enforce  by  law  uniformity  in  language 
and  custom.  Once  Ashur  was  accepted  as  chief  god  and  taxes 
were  regularly  paid,  the  conquered  or  deported  were  reckoned 
good  Assyrian  citizens.  Aramaic  was  used  willingly  by  all 
officials,  from  the  commander-in-chief  to  the  humblest  scribe, 
and  it  was  employed  on  the  estates  of  the  crown  prince.  When 
a  prince  subject  to  Assyria  wished  to  tell  the  world  how  much 
he  was  in  favour  with  his  Assyrian  master,  he  used  the  Ara¬ 
maic  language. 

Inevitably  no  subject  state  could  be  retained  within  the 
empire  without  becoming  to  a  large  extent  Assyrianised,  but 
no  conscious  effort  brought  this  about.  Narrow  localism, 
such  as  obtained  in  the  petty  states  of  Syria,  developed  into 
a  broader  cosmopolitanism,  but  it  was  a  healthy  development. 
There  was  clash  enough  between  the  nationalism  of  the  small 
states  and  the  imperial  ideal;  we  may  sympathise  with  the 
former,  but  we  cannot  condemn  the  empire  for  an  overzealous 
attempt  to  enforce  uniformity. 

It  is  universally  admitted  that  the  chief  impulse  to  modern 
imperialism  is  the  economic,  and  this  in  no  broad  sense,  the 

1 J.  810. 


OUR  LORD  KING 


609 


betterment  of  the  entire  people,  but  narrowly  commercial. 
In  the  most  primitive  sense,  Assyrian  wars  had  an  economic 
basis,  for  they  secured  booty  in  the  field  and  taxes  thereafter 
on  which  the  governing  classes  might  live.  It  cannot  be  suf- 
ficiently  emphasised  that  commercial  considerations  in  the 
ordinary  meaning  of  the  word  made  absolutely  no  appeal. 
There  is  no  indication  that  the  commercial  classes  had  the 
slightest  influence  on  the  foreign  policy  of  the  government, 
and  there  is  much  evidence  that  the  merchants  were  looked 
upon  with  suspicion.  Commercial  cities  were  captured  for 
their  booty,  their  taxes,  their  military  situation,  never  as  rivals 
of  merchant  cities  in  Assyria  proper. 

No  reader  can  peruse  the  letters  without  a  very  real  admira¬ 
tion  for  the  government  as  an  administrative  machine.  Con¬ 
sidering  the  circumstances  under  which  they  were  written  and 
the  proved  fact  that  the  majority  which  can  be  definitely  as¬ 
signed  belong  to  periods  of  crisis,  the  whole  impression  is  that 
of  remarkable  efficiency.  Graft  is  not  entirely  eliminated; 
Adacl-shum-usur,  for  example,  has  fallen  so  low  that  he  cannot 
even  bribe  a  member  of  the  court  to  take  up  his  cause  and, 
therefore,  must  appeal  to  the  king  in  person.1  Inefficiency 
and  insubordination  are  sometimes  asserted  by  rivals  and 
now  and  then  are  proved,  but  our  feeling  is  that  on  the  whole 
the  machine  ran  as  smoothly  as  does  the  modern.  There  was 
close  inspection  from  above,  but  no  serious  loss  of  initiative 
seems  to  have  resulted. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  assert  that  an  ethical  attitude  towards 
the  ruler’s  subjects  is  the  result  of  Christianity.  We  shall 
certainly  not  look  for  a  high  development  among  the  milita¬ 
ristic  Assyrians.  To  be  perfectly  fair,  however,  we  should  note 
the  frequent  occurrence  of  language  implying  something  of  this 
attitude.  The  Good  Shepherd  was  not  first  discovered  by 
Christians;  the  “ faithful  shepherd,”  the  “true  shepherd,”  the 
“shepherd  of  the  four  world  regions,”  are  among  the  titles 
the  kings  apply  to  themselves.  If  in  practice  there  was  more 
stress  on  the  worth  of  the  sheep  to  the  shepherd  when  sheared 


1H.  2. 


610 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


and  eaten,  enlightened  self-interest  demanded  that  the  sheep 
be  well  fed  and  well  treated  and  protected  against  the  wolves, 
“the  rulers  and  princes  who  hate  me/’  the  officials  thinking 
only  of  their  own  welfare. 

He  may  be  a  god  himself,  but  he  is  also  a  pious  follower  of 
the  great  gods.  With  the  aid  of  his  helper  gods,  Ashur  and 
Shamash,  he  walks  righteously  and  it  is  their  decrees  which 
he  carries  out.  He  bears  a  sceptre  of  righteousness,  which 
overwhelms  all  lands.  Sargon’s  cylinder  inscription  is  full  of 
his  claims  of  righteous  action.  Sennacherib  is  the  watchful 
or  the  powerful  shepherd,  who  fears  the  great  gods,  who  guards 
the  truth,  who  loves  the  right,  who  renders  help,  coming  to 
the  aid  of  the  weak,  and  his  expressed  care  for  the  groaning 
workmen  and  other  signs  of  sentiment  have  already  been 
noticed.  Ashur-bani-apal  in  his  messianic  passages  tells  how 
happy  was  his  land.  The  letters  are  as  usual  proof  that  this 
care  was  exercised  in  detail,  if  here  too  the  figure  of  the  cal¬ 
culating  shepherd  is  somewhat  in  the  foreground. 

After  all,  the  ultimate  test  of  a  government  is  not  the  good 
intentions  of  its  rulers  but  what  they  accomplish.  Judged 
by  this  test,  the  Assyrian  can  claim  about  as  considerable  a 
success  as  the  next.  Before  the  advent  of  the  Assyrians,  west¬ 
ern  Asia  was  in  a  state  of  chronic  warfare  between  petty 
states;  Assyria  gave  peace  to  a  large  portion  of  this  area,  a 
peace  which  was  cheaply  earned  by  isolated  frontier  wars  or 
by  taxation. 

The  material  basis  for  Assyrian  development  was  by  no 
means  of  the  best.  Babylonia  was  of  course  extremely  fertile, 
when  it  was  administered  from  Assyria  and  was  not  inundated 
by  nomads.  Assyria  proper  was  by  no  means  rich  in  soil,  for 
much  was  rocky  and  much  could  not  be  irrigated.  Mesopo¬ 
tamia  was  fertile  but  denied  water,  Syria  and  Palestine  were 
distinctly  inferior.  There  was  great  mineral  wealth  just  out¬ 
side  the  borders  of  the  empire,  but  little  of  this  mining  terri¬ 
tory  could  ever  be  brought  within. 

That  Assyria  was  the  success  she  undoubtedly  was  must  be 
attributed  to  two  facts.  First,  her  governing  classes  made 


OUR  LORD  KING 


611 


the  Assyrian  peace.  Taxation  might  be  grinding  but  war 
was  stopped,  and  such  resources  as  the  area  possessed  were 
allowed  to  develop.  Second,  these  governing  classes  might 
look  down  on  trade  and  commerce  as  such,  but  their  peace 
permitted  the  development  of  the  industrial  possibilities  of  a 
population  in  the  highest  degree  of  technical  efficiency.  Add 
to  this  the  trading  ability  of  Babylonians  and  Aramaeans,  of 
Phoenicians  and  Greeks,  who  took  advantage  of  the  imposing 
imperial  structure  to  make  its  treasures  accessible  to  the  races 
of  the  then  civilised  earth.  The  imperial  structure  was  but¬ 
tressed  by  industry  and  in  its  turn  permitted  a  degree  of  in¬ 
dustrialism  which  was  unique  in  the  world’s  history. 


CHAPTER  XLVII 


ASHUR,  THE  KING-GOD 

Ashur  was  in  many  respects  the  precursor  of  Yahweh.  In 
their  beginnings,  they  had  the  same  desert  background.  When 
their  followers  pressed  forward  into  the  same  Fertile  Crescent, 
they  were  faced  by  the  same  agricultural  religion,  and  each 
took  for  his  worship  some  of  its  least  pleasing  elements.  Each 
became  the  supreme  national  god  to  a  degree  undreamed  else¬ 
where,  and  each  was  attacked  from  without  and  about  the 
same  time.  Each  was  about  the  same  period  well  on  the  road 
towards  monotheism.  And  then  came  the  parting  of  the  ways : 
Yahweh  entered  upon  that  unexampled  development  which 
led  to  the  Christian  Jehovah;  Ashur  succumbed  to  the  miasma 
from  Shumer. 

In  his  first  desert  home,  Ashur  was  a  sun-god,  a  first  cousin 
of  Re  of  Egypt,  Shamash  of  Sippar,  Nergal  of  Kutu,  and  Mar- 
duk  of  Babylon.  The  desert  sun  is  not  a  kindly  deity  who 
wakens  the  flowers  from  their  winter  sleep;  he  is  the  fierce  god 
beneath  whose  blazing  shafts  pasturage  withers,  streams  dis¬ 
appear,  flocks  and  herds  and  man  himself  come  to  an  untimely 
end.  His  fellow  clansmen  may  not  lightly  take  his  name  in 
vain,  but  he  is  a  terror  to  their  enemies.  He  is  well  fitted  to 
be  a  leader  of  warriors. 

The  fierce  Semites  of  the  desert  found  in  the  Fertile  Crescent 
a  high  agricultural  civilisation  whose  peaceful  exponents  were 
interested,  not  in  successful  war,  not  in  the  flocks  and  herds, 
but  in  the  growth  of  plants.  Women  had  begun  the  primitive 
hoe  culture,  and  it  was  only  natural  that  the  mysterious  life- 
giving  power  inherent  in  woman  should  be  transferred  to  what 
she  cultivated.  Thus  there  had  grown  up  that  cult  of  the 
mother  goddess  which  is  the  basal  religion  of  the  Near  East. 

There  was  much  to  be  commended  in  this  worship  of  the  divine 

612 


ASHUR,  THE  KING-GOD 


613 


mother,  but  she  was  not  always  wedded  and  many  of  her  rites 
were  most  repulsive  to  the  modern  man.1 

Re  of  Egypt  soon  fell  under  the  influence  of  the  Nile  valley, 
and  the  Nile  himself,  Osiris,  handed  over  many  of  his  attributes 
until  Re  might  even  be  invoked  as  the  god  of  the  after-life. 
So  Nergal  in  Babylonia  added  to  his  maleficent  attributes  as 
scorching  sun-god  the  sway  of  the  grim  underworld,  though 
legend  long  commemorated  his  descent  into  the  home  of  the 
dead  where  by  brute  force  he  compelled  the  native  goddess 
who  then  ruled  it  to  accept  him  as  her  consort.  Shamash  took 
the  oversight  of  the  liver  omens,  while  the  name  of  Marduk 
was  substituted  wholesale  for  the  elder  Enlil,  and  only  the 
reference  of  the  cause  and  cure  of  disease  to  his  “  father”  Ea 
preserved  the  proof  that  Marduk  was  not  originally  the  god 
of  healing  magic. 

Ashur  was  of  sturdier  build.  He  did  borrow  the  symbol 
of  his  cousin  Re,  the  winged  sun-disk,  and  scholars  identified 
him  with  the  Anshar  of  the  Shumerian  creation  myth.  Such 
scholarly  identification  had  little  effect  on  king  and  noble. 

Ashur,  or  rather  Ashir,  the  earlier  form  of  his  name,  was  a 
well-known  god  to  the  colonists  who  settled  in  Cappadocia 
some  twenty-four  centuries  before  Christ,  but  otherwise  he 
appears  as  a  purely  local  deity.  God,  city,  nation,  all  bore 
the  same  name,  and  were  closely  united.  As  Assyria  expanded, 
his  worship  followed,  and  when  the  empire  exceeded  the  limits 
of  the  nation,  his  image  was  still  placed  in  every  provincial 
capital  or  capital  of  a  subject  ally.  Always,  however,  the 
original  house  in  the  capital  of  his  name  was  his  true  home. 

Not  alone  in  temples  was  he  worshipped.  His  chief  symbol 
was  the  winged  sun’s  disk  with  the  bust  of  an  archer;  placed 
on  a  support  and  carried  into  battle,  it  meant  the  living  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  god  in  camp  and  conflict.  Yet  the  presence  of  this 
standard  was  something  a  little  less  material  than  an  image, 
something  of  the  same  feeling  existed  as  was  indicated  by  the 
empty  ark  of  Yahweh. 

Through  the  presence  of  this  symbol,  Ashur  himself  brings 

1  Cf.  p.  9. 


614 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


the  king  aid.  It  is  with  his  weapons  that  every  ruler  wins 
his  battles,  his  are  the  Assyrian  soldiers,  the  enemy  are  hostile 
to  him  in  the  first  instance.  It  is  Ashur  who  commands  that 
the  boundary  of  his  land  should  be  extended,  the  tax  and 
tribute  are  of  the  lord  Ashur,  when  the  heavy  yoke  of  the  king’s 
lordship  is  placed  on  newly  conquered  peoples,  it  is  in  reality 
to  the  lord  Ashur  they  are  made  subject,  to  him  they  were  not 
submissive,  and  when  subdued  they  are  numbered  with  those 
subject  before  the  lord  Ashur. 

In  peace,  he  is  still  all-powerful.  He  is  the  great  lord,  who 
rules  the  whole  assembly  of  the  gods,  who  bestows  sceptre 
and  crown,  who  establishes  royal  rule.  It  is  the  great  lord 
Ashur  who  calls  the  new  king  by  name,  increases  his  kingdom 
over  the  kings  of  the  four  world  quarters,  magnifies  his  name, 
intrusts  his  weapons  unsparing  to  his  lordly  power. 

To  be  sure,  it  is  recognised  that  he  has  colleagues,  or  rather 
subordinates.  Sometimes  they  appear  as  the  “ great  gods,” 
sometimes  they  form  a  group,  rarely  they  appear  without 
him.  But  they  are  definitely  his  inferiors.  Ashur  is  “  father 
of  the  gods,”  and  in  the  stern  Semitic  family  life  this  implies 
a  greater  elevation  above  his  sons  than  would  be  recognised 
in  America.  Before  his  all-embracing  fatherhood,  the  great 
gods  are  scarcely  more  powerful  than  that  other  son  of  Ashur, 
the  king.  So  he  is  likewise  “king  of  the  gods,”  or  the  “leader 
of  the  gods”  against  the  chaos  monster.  And  in  the  end,  the 
other  great  gods  tend  to  be  remade  in  his  image,  to  be  simply 
Ashurs  on  a  small  scale,  almost,  we  might  say,  they  sink  to 
the  level  of  angels. 

So  Ashur  remains  an  isolated  god,  stern,  savage,  passion¬ 
less,  aloof  from  human  kind.  He  is,  and  there  is  none  beside 
him.  So  stern  is  his  isolation  that  even  a  wife  is  missing,  his 
children  have  no  known  mother.  Once  only  does  he  subject 
himself  to  human  frailties,  when  he  indulges  in  the  great  de¬ 
light  of  his  children,  for  like  Yahweh  he  is  a  “man  of  war.” 
Even  here,  he  is  supernatural  in  size  and  in  distance,  his  very 
presence  in  war  makes  him  all  the  more  remote  from  the  ordi¬ 
nary  affairs  of  life. 


' 


616 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


No  sooner  were  his  people  settled  in  the  fertile  countries 
than  they  were  exposed  to  the  same  insidious  influences  from 
the  agricultural  religion  as  were  the  Hebrews.  The  Hebrew 
tribal  God  was  early  identified  with  the  Baals,  the  agricultural 
lords  of  fertility,  as  Marduk  of  Babylon  became  the  Bel,  the 
Lord,  par  excellence.  Ashur  unbent  so  far  as  to  accept  the 
title  of  “great  lord/7  but  there  is  no  proof  of  such  yielding 
to  the  seductions  of  the  nature-worship  as  are  postulated  by 
the  golden  bull  of  the  Aaron  sto^  or  by  those  set  up  at  Bethel 
and  at  Dan.  To  the  end  Ashur  remained  in  an  isolation  never 
attained  by  any  of  the  gods  of  Babylonia. 

Ashur  remained  unchanged  but  his  followers  were  not  im¬ 
mune  to  the  lures  of  the  lascivious  rites  employed  in  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  the  goddess  of  fertility.  The  oldest  temple  at  Ashur 
was  that  of  the  Assyrian  Ishtar,  and  two  other  Ishtars  took 
their  names  from  the  near-by  cities  of  Nineveh  and  Arbela. 
Her  cult  remained  unchanged  though  her  name  was  Semitised. 
The  mother  goddess  at  Arbela  was  more  fortunate  than  she 
of  Delphi,  for  she  never  was  forced  to  surrender  to  a  god  her 
right  to  predict  the  future  and  many  were  the  occasions  when 
Esarhaddon  and  Ashur-bani-apal  invoked  her  aid.  She  did 
have  a  serious  masculine  rival,  Shamash,  with  his  liver  omens, 
but  his  abode  was  not  at  Arbela. 

Ishtar  of  the  fertility  rites  was  not  the  Ishtar  of  the  kings. 
So  far  as  there  was  a  goddess  to  stand  by  the  side  of  Ashur, 
it  was  Ishtar,  not  the  “mother  of  mortals,77  but  the  “first 
among  the  gods,  the  lady  of  ruin,  who  looses  the  terrors  of 
battle.77  Once  she  is  called  the  “beloved  wife  of  Ashur,77  as 
once  he  has  a  consort  Ashuritum  and  again  Ninlil  is  bracketed 
with  him.  In  actual  practice,  Ishtar  is  a  sister  rather  than  a 
wife.  It  is  not  Ishtar,  the  goddess  of  unrestricted  love  with 
whom  we  deal,  but  the  Bedawi  matron  of  proved  chastity  and 
savage  enough  to  lead  her  tribe  into  battle. 

Like  Israel  again,  the  Assyrians  did  not  have  to  reckon  only 
with  the  native  gods  whose  rights  to  the  soil  the  invading 
deities  were  usurping.  There  was  equal  threat  to  Ashur  from 
the  higher  material  culture  from  without.  Assyria  had  learned 


ASHUR,  THE  KING-GOD 


617 


Marduk  as  a  suzerain  in  the  earliest  days  of  her  existence,  and 
this  at  the  very  era  when  Marduk  was  usurping  all  the  rights 
of  the  other  gods  of  Babylonia.  The  freedom  of  Ashur  marked 
the  decline  of  Marduk,  but  not  for  long.  Assyria  was  always 
peculiarly  susceptible  to  Babylonian  influence,  and,  as  it  grew, 
the  influence  of  Marduk  grew  with  it.  Then,  too,  the  As¬ 
syrian  monarchs  were  always  hoping  the  day  might  come  when 
Babylon  should  be  an  integral  part  of  the  Assyrian  domain. 
When  this  was  secured,  Marduk  was  placed  on  an  equality, 
an  “ equal  brother”  of  Ashur  was  the  way  Ashur-bani-apal 
put  it.  Together  they  divided  the  world,  but  Ashur  was  al¬ 
ways  the  chief  of  the  two.  How  strong  was  this  influence 
among  the  nobility  is  shown  by  the  huge  number  of  purely 
Assyrian  officials  whose  names  are  compounded  with  Marduk. 

Strangely  enough,  there  was  never  the  slightest  danger  to 
Ashur’s  position  from  Marduk.  As  early  as  Adad-nirari  I, 
we  find  the  Babylonian  sky-god,  Anu  of  Uruk,  who  had  already 
usurped  first  place  in  the  Adad  temple  and  now  was  placed 
before  Ashur.  Anu,  however,  was  even  more  ethereal  than 
Ashur,  and  there  was  no  aftermath.  Ashur-nasir-apal  does 
indeed  place  Ashur  at  the  head  in  some  of  his  inscriptions,  but 
his  annals  are  dedicated  to  Urta.  We  can  scarcely  understand 
how  he  can  place  Ashur  first  and  still  call  Urta  “the  chief  of 
the  gods,  the  chief  of  the  four  world  regions,  who  grants  sceptre 
and  sway  to  all  cities,  the  lord  of  lords,”  but  his  many  other 
titles  simply  show  him  a  specialised  Ashur.  Shalmaneser  III 
especially  praises  Shamash,  and  his  son  Shamshi-Adad  V  re¬ 
news  the  praises  of  Urta,  but  neither  was  a  rival  of  Ashur. 
The  strange  tendency  to  a  near  monotheism  in  the  name  of 
Nabu  during  the  rule  of  Sammuramat  has  already  been  dis¬ 
cussed.1 

With  the  flood  of  Babylonian  influence  which  followed  the 
coronation  of  Tiglath  Pileser  III  in  Babylon,  Nabu  comes 
into  his  own.  Nabu  names  lead  all  others  in  frequency,  fifty 
of  the  letter-writers  alone  having  names  compounded  with 
that  of  the  god.  The  formula  of  greeting,  “To  the  king  my 

1  Cf.  p.  164. 


618 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


lord,  thy  servant  so  and  so ,”  is  in  ninety  per  cent  of  the  cases 
followed  by  “May  Nabu  and  Marduk  be  gracious  to  the  king 
my  lord.”  Our  only  exceptions  are  letters  from  cities  with 
strongly  individualised  deities,  and  Ashur  appears  only  in 
those  from  the  city  which  bore  his  name.  Now  of  course  no 
king  would  have  accepted  such  a  greeting  did  it  not  corre¬ 
spond  to  his  own  feelings.  That  Marduk  has  supplanted  his 
rivals  may  be  explained  on  grounds  set  forth  above;  that  Nabu, 
god  of  a  comparatively  unimportant  suburb  of  Babylon,  should 
have  the  precedence  demands  a  reason.  The  discovery  that 
a  large  proportion  of  the  tablets  in  Ashur-bani-apaFs  library 
bear  a  confession  that  it  was  he  who  made  the  king  learned 
may  explain  his  particular  case,  why  did  the  other  Sargonids 
prefer  Nabu  to  Ashur?  Is  it  possible  that  after  all  they  did 
have  some  appreciation  of  the  “wisdom”  of  which  Nabu  was 
master  ? 

From  the  west  country,  the  Assyrians  brought  Adad,  the 
weather-god,  with  his  bellowing  bull  and  his  thunderbolt. 
His  was  the  very  early  temple  at  Ashur  later  shared  with  the 
usurper  Anu,  his  the  golden  thunderbolt  recovered  in  the  ex¬ 
cavations.  As  Hadad,  he  was  well  known  in  Syria;  it  was 
the  Adad  of  Aleppo  who  gave  the  sovereignty  of  that  territory 
to  Shalmaneser  III,  it  was  Hadad  to  whom  Panammu  I  of  the 
northern  Judah  set  up  a  statue.  Adad  appears  frequently  in 
Assyrian  historical  records,  but  generally  in  metaphor,  for  it 
was  in  his  likeness  that  the  kings  overwhelmed  their  enemies 
as  with  a  flood,  like  Adad  the  mountains  thundered  after  the 
retreating  foe,  but  it  was  likewise  Adad  whose  showers  per¬ 
mitted  the  millennial  happiness  of  Ashur-bani-apaFs  reign. 

Two  favourite  Assyrian  deities  were  Shamash  and  Sin,  the 
sun  and  moon  gods,  who  were  worshipped  in  a  double  temple, 
similar  to  and  across  the  square  from  the  double  temple  of 
Anu  and  Adad.  Its  date,  at  least  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Ashir- 
nirari  I,  proves  the  antiquity  of  their  worship. 

After  Ashur  had  sloughed  off  his  solar  characteristics  and 
had  become  the  father  of  the  gods,  Shamash  represented  the 
sun.  Judging  from  the  royal  names,  he  was  extremely  popular 


ASHUR,  THE  KING-GOD 


619 


in  early  times,  and  that  popularity  never  lessened.  He  repre¬ 
sented  the  more  genial  aspects  of  the  sun,  as  they  had  been 
learned  in  agriculture,  he  was  the  great  lawgiver,  the  judge 
who  demanded  righteousness,  the  supporter  of  the  highest 
ethical  ideals.  In  the  records  of  our  period,  however,  his  chief 
function  is  the  unveiling  of  the  future  through  the  liver  omens. 
It  is  a  queer  method  of  divination  for  a  sun-god. 

An  altar  from  Ashur  throws  some  light  on  solar  conceptions. 
On  the  base,  the  god  faces  his  double,  each  standing  on  his 
mountain.  Behind  each,  attendants  bear  loads  across  the  hills 
and  the  procession  is  closed  by  the  horse,  who  as  aass  of  the 
mountains”  to  the  east  very  appropriately  comes  from  the 
sunrise.  The  centre  of  the  main  composition  is  the  king,  bare¬ 
headed  and  barefooted,  clad  in  the  antique  garment  which 
left  one  shoulder  bare,  his  hand  in  the  gesture  of  adoration. 
On  either  side  stands  the  sun-god,  in  his  most  archaic  form, 
head  and  upper  body  facing  the  spectator,  lower  body  in  pro¬ 
file.  He  wears  the  short  garment  of  the  early  Semite,  with  a 
dagger  in  the  girdle,  but  his  hair  is  elaborately  puffed  out  on 
all  sides  and  his  beard  is  square  and  in  individual  curls.  In 
his  hand  he  grasps  his  standard,  a  long  pole  with  the  crescent 
moon,  from  which  hang  two  tassels;  above  triple  rings  is  the 
sun’s  disk,  within  are  eight  rays,  alternately  waved  and  straight. 
Similar  disks  on  rings  rest  on  the  sun-god’s  head  and  fill  the 
corners  made  by  the  “ horns”  of  the  altar.1 

Sin’s  chief  abode  was  Harran,  the  capital  of  the  old  Meso¬ 
potamian  kingdom.  From  the  days  of  Shalmaneser  III,  As¬ 
syrian  kings  frequented  his  shrine  and  glorified  it,  and  Ashur- 
bani-apal  has  left  us  a  full  description  of  his  temple.  Thanks 
to  its  influence,  Harran  was  the  only  city  outside  Assyria  and 
Babylonia  which  boasted  a  charter  as  an  imperial  free  city. 
The  business  records  with  their  frequent  references  to  oaths 
by  or  penalties  to  Sin  of  Harran,  and  the  numerous  names  in 
Si,  the  Mesopotamian  equivalent,  in  the  Harran  Census,  show 
how  popular  was  his  rule. 

We  have  now  mentioned  the  chief  gods  worshipped  in  As- 

1  Jordan,  MDOG.,  XLIX,  33  ff. 


620 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


syria.  Only  Ashur  was  purely  Assyrian,  the  others  were  com¬ 
mon  Semitic  in  origin,  and  each  was  paralleled  in  Babylonia. 
Or  rather,  they  were  parallel  in  name,  for  as  time  went  on, 
each  of  the  imports  from  Babylonia  grew  to  be  more  and  more 
like  Ashur,  who  still  retained  his  aloofness.  But,  while  they 
lost  their  own  peculiar  characteristics,  they  did  the  damage. 
Men  in  Assyria  felt  the  need  of  deities  who  were  more  human 
than  the  far-away  Ashur.  With  the  flood  of  Babylonian  deities 
in  the  last  Assyrian  century,  all  possibility  of  monotheism 
disappeared,  and  with  that  all  possibility  of  a  cosmopolitan 
religion.  Ashur  became  more  and  more  an  abstract  form  of 
the  Assyrian  people,  and  when  the  end  of  the  empire  suddenly 
came,  Ashur  sank  back  into  a  purely  local  deity.1 

Official  worship  was  directed  towards  these  gods  and  towards 
Ashur  in  particular.  For  them  were  the  great  temples,  whose 
foundation  went  back  to  so  remote  a  past  and  whose  restora¬ 
tion  by  pious  monarchs  we  have  so  often  quoted.  One  at  least, 
that  of  Ishtar  at  Ashur,  was  of  prehistoric  date,  and  already 
possesses  the  long  narrow  throne-room  with  the  cult  statue 
in  the  niche  at  the  upper  end  which  distinguished  the  Assyrian 
temple  from  the  Babylonian  with  its  broad  shallow  room.  In 
many  respects,  this  earliest  of  our  temples  affords  our  best 
picture  of  what  an  Assyrian  temple  was  like.2  Later,  the  Shu- 
merian  influence  became  more  evident.  Temple  names  are 
always  in  the  Shumerian  form,  and  the  Shumerian  word  for 
“house,”  E,  regularly  precedes.  From  the  south  came  also 
the  temple  tower,  the  huge  mass  of  solid  brickwork  which  was 
the  ancestor  of  our  church  steeple.  Imported  into  the  alluvium 
by  the  mountain-loving  Shumerians,  it  was  rather  out  of  place 
in  Assyria,  where  it  was  dwarfed  by  near-by  hills. 

Aside  from  the  statues,  of  which  we  may  obtain  some 
glimpses  from  the  debris  at  Ashur  or  at  Kalhu,  we  know  little 
of  their  furniture  and  even  less  of  their  cult.  Sacrifices  there 
were,  but  the  majority  of  our  references  are  to  the  food  and 

1  Cf.  especially  Jastrow,  Religion  Babyloniens  und  Assyriens,  I,  201  ff.,  for  the 
Assyrian  pantheon. 

2  Cf.  p.  17. 


ASHUR,  THE  KING-GOD 


621 


other  supplies  needed  by  the  priests  and  attendants.  Cere¬ 
monies  likewise  we  may  mention,  but  here  again  we  walk  in 
darkness.  The  chief  ceremonies  seem  to  have  been  carried 
out  on  New  Year’s  Day,  the  day  of  the  spring  equinox,  when 
Ashur  feasted  his  gods,  and  when  the  fates  of  mankind  were 
decided.  Various  gods  had  their  various  days,  and  in  par¬ 
ticular  do  we  learn  of  the  feast-days  when  the  divine  bride¬ 
groom  went  out  to  spend  the  day  with  his  bride.1 

With  the  vast  mass  of  “ religious  texts,”  it  is  indeed  a  matter 
for  surprise  that  we  can  answer  so  few  of  the  questions  as  to 
the  official  cult.  Soon  the  reason  appears:  there  were  two 
religions  at  Ashur.  The  cult  thus  far  discussed  is  the  old 
Semitic  religion,  and  its  gaps  may  be  filled  out  without  much 
danger  of  error  from  the  forms  employed  elsewhere  among  the 
Semites.  There  was  another  religion,  whose  roots  went  back 
to  the  most  primitive  magic  and  which  had  been  imported 
entire  from  Shumer.  Gods  of  the  proper  Semitic  type  were 
late-comers  into  this  system;  the  real  possessors  were  the  spir¬ 
its.  Early  Shumerians  were  not  far  from  the  animistic  stage. 
Their  world  was  filled  with  spirits,  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  them,  and  for  the  most  part  malignant.  Group  after  group 
of  them  were  named,  and  still  there  remained  others  who  were 
unknown.  Among  the  most  terrible  were  the  ghosts  of  the 
dead,  especially  those  who  had  died  by  violence.  Terrible  in 
particular  were  those  who  brought  disease,  such  as  those  who 
transmitted  tuberculosis,  or  those  who  threatened  women  when 
a  new  life  was  coming  into  the  world. 

Fortunately,  there  were  means  of  overcoming  these  evil 
spirits.  Long,  long  ago,  the  god  of  wisdom  and  of  the  cleansing 
water,  Ea  of  Eridu,  had  discovered  the  charms,  the  incanta¬ 
tions,  the  hymns,  the  magical  mixtures,  which  might  cure  the 
sick  or  ward  off  the  evil.  Marduk  later  robbed  him  of  this 
office,  but  he  still  must  go  to  the  older  god  for  advice. 

Assyria  was  flooded  with  these  Shumerian  spirits,  and  every 
citizen  was  open  to  their  attacks.  Ashur  and  the  great  gods 
were  far  off,  their  interest  was  chiefly  in  the  state  and  the  kings ; 

1  Cf.  p.  371. 


622 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


private  individuals  were  more  concerned  with  the  good  and 
especially  the  evil  of  their  own  lives.  Their  practical  religion 
was  therefore  largely  magic.  The  house  of  the  magician  at 
Ashur  was  one  of  the  chief  of  the  private  residences,  and  from 
its  halls  has  come  a  large  number  of  “ religious  texts”  which 
in  reality  represent  a  rather  low  grade  of  magic.  Ashur-bani- 
apal’s  library  was  filled  with  texts  prepared  for  the  same  pur¬ 
pose. 

Magic  is  so  low  a  form  of  religion  that  famous  scholars  have 
denied  it  the  name  of  religion  at  all.  Strangely  enough,  from 
this  magical  soil  often  spring  the  finest  flowers  of  religion  and 
of  ethics.  Nowhere  is  this  more  true  than  in  Assyria.  The 
magical  texts  themselves  are  naively  primitive,  simple  ad¬ 
jurations  to  the  evil  spirit  to  depart,  meaningless  syllables 
and  scarcely  more  meaning  concoctions.  Suddenly,  in  the 
midst  of  such  a  bit  of  hocus-pocus,  we  chance  upon  a  hymn 
of  extreme  beauty,  with  an  elevation  of  religious  spirit  so  great 
that  the  Hebrew  psalms  are  often  brought  into  comparison.1 
Sin  is  often  of  purely  ceremonial  character,  yet  the  sense  of 
sin  is  there;  nowhere  in  all  the  world’s  literature  will  there 
be  found  so  close  a  resemblance  to  the  penitential  psalms  of 
the  Hebrews  or  the  mediaeval  hymns  which  sing  the  wrath  of 
God.  Not  all  sin  is  ceremonial,  there  are  inquisitions  as  to 
moral  delinquencies.  Has  the  sinner  incited  one  member  of 
a  family  against  another,  has  he  wrongly  held  men  prisoner, 
has  he  used  false  weights  or  demanded  the  wrong  price,  has 
he  removed  the  landmark  or  set  up  the  boundary  stone  falsely, 
has  he  entered  his  neighbour’s  house  and  approached  his  neigh¬ 
bour’s  wife,  has  he  shed  his  neighbour’s  blood,  has  he  stolen 
his  neighbour’s  garment,  did  he  vow  and  not  fulfil?2  Here 
is  much  the  same  condemnation  of  unethical  action  as  is 
found  in  the  words  of  the  Hebrew  prophet  Amos;  indeed,  the 
coincidences  are  almost  verbal. 

The  final  test  of  a  religion  is  its  ethics.  No  Assyrian  wrote 
a  treatise  on  formal  ethics,  none  even  prepared  a  hymn  in 
praise  of  morality.  We  can  discuss  Assyrian  morals  only  on 
1  Cf.  p.  472.  2  Rogers,  Parallels,  170  ff. 


ASHUR,  THE  KING-GOD 


623 


the  basis  of  practical  action,  and  without  mention  of  any  ideals, 
any  dreams  of  perfection.  We  have  but  to  consider  for  a  mo¬ 
ment  how  our  civilisation  would  be  judged  if  only  actions  and 
not  ideals  were  allowed  in  the  balance,  or  we  may  perhaps 
view  ourselves  in  the  none-too-flattering  mirrors  set  up  by  non- 
Christian  Asiatics.  Then,  properly  humble,  we  may  search 
for  traces  of  Assyrian  morality. 

Assyrians  were  religious,  that  we  must  grant,  and  they  wor¬ 
shipped  gods  who  demanded  righteousness.  In  their  published 
records,  Assyrian  monarchs  boast  their  regard  for  the  divine 
rules,  and  officials  say  the  same  in  their  correspondence. 
Doubtless  they  told  the  truth  as  often  as  do  men  of  the  present. 

Was  their  ideal  of  righteousness  the  same  as  ours?  In  one 
respect  it  certainly  was  not,  for  to  them  righteousness  meant 
following  out  certain  ceremonial  practices;  we  consider  quite 
another  group  of  practices  pleasing  in  the  eyes  of  the  Deity. 
After  ceremonial  righteousness  has  been  eliminated,  there  re¬ 
mains  the  more  strictly  ethical  righteousness.  Our  chief  sources 
for  Assyrian  history  are  the  royal  annals  with  their  very  prac¬ 
tical  purpose  of  presenting  to  the  after-world  a  flattering  por¬ 
trait  of  the  ruler  and  of  persuading  enemies  that  war  was  un¬ 
wise.  They  are  filled  with  imperialism  of  the  frankest  sort 
and  they  recite  cruelties  of  a  horrible  character.  Closer  analy¬ 
sis  often  proves  that  bloodthirstiness  must  be  lessened  at  the 
expense  of  their  veracity,  but  even  at  that,  the  chief  difference 
between  their  annals  and  those  of  the  “nationalist”  historians 
of  the  present  is  that  the  latter  buttress  their  imperialism  with 
fine  phrases  about  the  “white  man’s  burden”  or  “our  good 
old  national  God”  while  the  Assyrians  simply  declared  they 
were  doing  the  service  of  their  god  and  that  was  the  end  of 
it.  As  to  the  cruelties,  what  nation  among  their  contempora¬ 
ries  did  not  use  the  same  methods,  what  later  empire  has  not 
concealed  much  the  same  crimes? 

But  we  wrong  the  Assyrian  when  we  derive  our  ideas  of  his 
ethics  from  his  imperialist  propaganda  quite  as  much  as  when 
we  typify  Christian  civilisation  by  the  imperialist  story-teller 
who  praises  the  “god  of  the  things  that  are”  against  the  “God 


624 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


of  things  as  they  should  be”  preached  by  the  Christian  mis¬ 
sionary.  Turning  to  the  letters,  the  laws,  and  the  business 
documents,  we  are  in  exactly  the  same  moral  atmosphere  which 
we  find  in  the  earlier  parts  of  the  Bible.  Perhaps  the  legalistic 
tinge  is  stronger  than  it  is  in  the  earlier  Hebrew  records,  though 
it  is  less  strongly  marked  than  in  Babylonia.  Our  whole  im¬ 
pression  is  that  of  a  community  quietly  going  about  its  own 
business,  docilely  bowing  to  written  lav/,  but  quite  willing  to 
search  for  twilight  regions  where  sharp  dealing  was  justified. 
Yet  it  is  not  quite  fair  to  say  that  the  Assyrians  had  only  the 
virtues  of  sharp  shopkeepers.  The  kindly  treatment  of  slaves, 
the  advance  of  funds  to  serfs  without  interest,  the  care  for 
the  orphan  and  the  widow,  the  regulations  for  the  woman 
deserted  by  her  husband,  the  provision  that  sons  shall  take 
their  mother  to  their  homes  to  be  cherished  as  the  bride  that 
one  loves,  all  this  shows  a  humanity  we  should  never  suspect 
from  the  war  annals. 

There  are  blots  on  the  picture,  especially  if  we  compare 
Assyrian  practice  with  Christian  ideal.  Slavery  existed,  but 
it  was  less  severe  than  what  existed  all  over  the  Christian  world 
a  hundred  years  ago;  serfdom  must  be  acknowledged,  but  in 
most  parts  of  Europe  it  was  still  defended  as  of  divine  institu¬ 
tion  one  or  two  centuries  since.  Woman  had  a  lower  position 
in  Assyria  than  she  had  in  Babylonia,  but  at  that  she  had 
more  privileges  than  were  hers  legally  in  most  parts  of  the 
Christian  world  a  century  ago.  Polygamy  was  occasionally 
practised,  by  those  who  could  afford  it,  divorce  was  easy  for 
the  man,  much  easier  than  in  Babylonia,  and  it  was  virtually 
denied  to  the  wife,  prostitution  was  a  recognised  institution, 
regulated  by  the  state,  but  adultery  was  severely  punished, 
and  the  man  in  the  case  suffered  the  same  penalty  as  the 
woman.  With  our  vice  reports  and  our  six  months’  residences 
for  divorces,  it  is  doubtful  if  we  have  much  advanced.  The 
latest  Assyrians  lived  six  hundred  years  or  more  before  the 
Christian  era;  needless  to  say,  the  peculiar  virtues  taught  by 
the  Christ  and  sometimes  practised  by  his  followers  were  not 
observed. 


ASHUR,  THE  KING-GOD 


625 


And  yet,  one  cannot  live  with  these  men  year  after  year 
without  feeling  how  human  they  all  were.  They  suffered  their 
gusts  of  passion  and  they  had  their  calculating  meanness, 
they  had  their  outbursts  of  cruelty,  and  at  times  the  truth  was 
not  in  them.  All  in  all,  they  seem  pretty  decent  folks,  not  so 
very  different  from  the  men  of  our  block,  in  spite  of  different 
clothes,  different  speech,  and  a  religion  which  never  reached 
the  Christian  ideal.  There  were  no  saints  among  them,  their 
religion  was  not  of  that  type,  but  few  of  them  appear  such  ter¬ 
rible  sinners,  if  we  judge  them  by  twentieth-century  practice 
and  not  by  first-century  preaching. 

After  life  came  death,  but  no  hope  of  future  bliss  contributed 
to  the  ethical  development  of  the  Assyrian.  He  was  regularly 
buried  in  the  house  in  which  he  had  lived,  that  he  might  still 
be  at  hand,  but  his  was  not  a  benign  spirit.  Sometimes  he 
was  simply  placed  in  the  earth,  or  his  coffin  might  be  two  jars 
placed  mouth  to  mouth.  Family  graves  came  to  be  prepared, 
large-sized  vaults  such  as  were  used  for  the  last  resting-place 
of  the  kings  of  the  middle  period.1  Sarcophagi  were  of  stone 
or  of  clay;  sometimes  the  last  body  only  occupied  its  safety, 
the  skeletons  which  had  preceded  would  be  broken  up  and 
deposited  in  the  corners,  or  the  sarcophagus  would  be  crammed 
with  the  bones.  Always  the  lamp  was  left  in  a  niche,  and  even 
the  smoke  can  still  be  seen.  A  large  water-jar,  a  jug,  and  sev¬ 
eral  dishes  formed  the  remainder  of  the  equipment  needed  for 
the  after-life,  but  occasionally  ornaments  or  even  money  were 
left  behind  by  the  mourners.  Burning  of  corpses  came  late, 
and  is  found  only  in  the  graves  with  dish-cover  coffin  and  a 
rock  on  top. 

The  spirit  existed  after  death,  but  only  as  a  vague  ghost, 
harmful  to  the  relatives  if  not  properly  placed  in  the  grave, 
dangerous  to  passers-by  in  the  dark  when  it  must  secure  its 
livelihood  from  the  offal  of  the  streets.  More  fortunate  if 
laid  away  with  due  ceremony,  there  wa&_still  little  to  hope 
for,  mere  existence  in  the  vast  gloomy  underworld,  such  as 
that  pictured  by  Ezekiel,2  where  no  conscious  joy  might  be 
icf.  p.  70.  2  Cf.  p.  643. 


626 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


expected,  where  at  best  one  drank  pure  water  and  did  not 
actually  suffer.  With  so  gloomy  a  prospect  for  the  future, 
one  could  not  blame  the  Assyrian  if  he  said :  “  Let  us  eat,  drink, 
and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  we  die.  ”  Yet  his  gloomy  religion 
did  not  seriously  affect  his  life.  By  temperament,  he  was  less 
lively  than  the  Egyptian,  in  his  more  serious  quality  he  was 
akin  to  the  men  of  the  north,  but  his  letters  show  him  a  nor¬ 
mal,  cheerful  individual,  accepting  without  complaint  the  hard 
lot  assigned  him  by  his  divine  rulers. 


CHAPTER  XLVIIX 


TRAGEDY 

With  startling  suddenness,  our  records  cease  about  640. 
No  longer  do  we  enjoy  the  detailed  narrative  of  the  last  few 
years,  we  must  patch  together  with  much  theory  the  few  frag¬ 
ments  time  has  spared.  Business,  we  can  see,  continued  as 
usual,  since  we  have  documents  from  virtually  every  year,  but 
they  show  nothing  of  the  march  of  events. 

The  long  reign  of  Ashur-bani-apal  finally  came  to  an  end^ 
in  626.  Of  the  circumstances  of  his  death  and  of  the  events 
which  followed  we  are  entirely  ignorant.  A  stray  business 
document  mentions  a  certain  Nabu-rihtu-usur  who  sells  by 
proxy  his  daughter  for  sixteen  shekels  of  silver;  the  girl  was 
to  be  a  cheap  wife  for  the  son  of  the  buyer,  and  the  seller  must 
have  been  in  desperate  straits.1  A  little  later,  Nabu-rihtu- 
usur  is  a  candidate  for  the  throne  of  Assyria  and  supported 
by  Sin-shar-ibni,  governor  of  Te,  by  the  mass  of  Assyrian  citi¬ 
zens,  and  by  the  inhabitants  of  Ashur  in  particular.  Opposed 
to  him  was  a  young  son  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  who  bore  the  same 
name  as  did  Esarhaddon  before  his  accession,  Ashur-etil-ilani. 
After  severe  fighting,  the  true  heir  made  good  his  claim,  and 
in  gratitude  for  the  aid  furnished  by  his  commander-in-chief, 
Sin-shum-lishir,  granted  him  large  estates.  Not  content  with 
this  scant  recognition  of  his  services,  the  king-maker  revolted 
and  for  a  few  short  days  was  himself  a  king  in  Nippur.2 

Deficient  as  were  the  resources  of  the  kingdom,  Ashur-etil- 
ilani  must  have  his  individual  palace  at  Kalhu.  On  the  south¬ 
east  edge  of  the  palace  mound,  above  the  ruins  of  Esarhad- 
don’s  New  House,  he  erected  his  meagre  residence.  In  place 
of  the  magnificent  approaches  of  the  earlier  structures,  with 
their  bristling  lions  and  bulls,  simple  terraces  to  the  west  found 
their  only  ornament  in  the  thick  cement  with  which  the  walls 
were  covered.  The  area  included  was  small  and  the  ground 

2  J .  650;  807;  Moldenke,  Texts ,  II,  No.  1. 

627 


1  J.  307. 


628 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


plan  extraordinary.  Squares,  pentagons,  quadrangles,  tri¬ 
angles,  were  the  forms  assumed  by  the  rooms,  while  the  largest, 
tiny  enough  as  compared  with  its  predecessors,  resembled 
nothing  so  much  as  a  huge  question-mark.  Naturally,  the 
walls  were  of  very  varying  thickness.  No  ornament  marked 
the  interior.  Breast-high,  there  were  coarse,  roughly  hewn 
slabs;  above,  the  bare  plaster  wall  without  colour  extended 
over  the  mud  brick  to  the  roof  twenty  feet  above  the  limestone 
pavement.  Niches  in  the  wall  and  a  rough  cornice  on  the 
door-posts  completed  the  sorry  picture.  Ezida,  the  Nabu 
temple  in  Kalhu,  was  rebuilt,  and  the  brick  inscriptions  de¬ 
tailing  this  fact  afford  our  most  frequent  souvenirs  of  this 
monarch.1 

In  his  last  desperate  effort  to  retain  Babylonia,  Ashur-etil- 
ilani  made  an  extraordinary  concession  to  the  Dakkuru,  still 
a  power  to  be  reckoned  with.  The  body  of  their  former  king, 
that  Shamash-ibni  whom  Esarhaddon  had  so  viciously  at¬ 
tacked  with  scorching  proverbs  in  his  letter  to  the  non-Baby¬ 
lonians,2  was  brought  from  the  mountains  to  find  a  resting- 
place  in  his  home  land,  and  was  entombed  in  the  midst  of  the 
fortress  house.  Ashur-etil-ilani  is  careful  to  state  that  no  legal 
process  may  be  raised  against  his  action,  and  he  calls  upon 
Marduk,  Nabu,  and  Nergal  to  punish  the  ruler  or  official  who 
may  disturb  the  remains.  It  was  the  last  known  official  act  of 
an  Assyrian  in  Babylonia,  though  at  least  four  full  years  of 
rule  (626-622)  are  witnessed  by  the  business  documents  from 
Nippur.3 

In  or  after  622,  he  was  succeeded  by  Sin-shar-ishkun,  whose 
authority  was  recognised  for  at  least  two  years  in  Sippar  and 
in  Uruk  for  seven.  Ashur-etil-ilani  had  shown  his  affection  for 
the  Nabu  of  Kalhu  by  rebuilding  his  temple,  his  successor 
restored  that  at  Nineveh  and  erected  a  new  one  at  Ashur. 
But  new  temples  to  the  Assyrian  gods  would  not  restore  the 
Assyrian  provinces. 

1  Layard,  Nineveh  and  its  Remains ,  II,  37;  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  655;  I.  R.  8, 
3;  Streck,  Assurbanipal,  380  ff. 

2  Cf.  p.  352. 


3  Clay,  Misc.  Ins.,  No.  43. 


TRAGEDY 


629 


How  the  former  provinces  slipped  away  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  case  of  Judah.  The  long  reign  of  Manasseh  had  come 
to  an  end,  but  the  Egyptian  tendencies  indicated  by  the  name 
of  the  chief  god  of  the  Nile  valley  did  not  make  his  son  Amon 
less  willing  to  serve  Assyria.  Amon  likewise  followed  his  father 
in  his  religious  conservatism.  After  two  years,  he  was  put  to 


Map  12.  NABU  TEMPLE  OF  SIN-SHAR-ISHKUN  AT  ASHUR. 


death  in  his  own  house  by  the  reformers,  but  the  countryside 
had  not  been  infected  by  the  new  doctrines  which  were  again 
being  preached  in  the  capital;  it  was  the  men  from  the  rural 
districts  who  avenged  his  murder,  did  justice  on  his  assassins, 
and  placed  on  the  throne  his  eight-year-old  son  Josiah.1 

Conservatism  continued  during  tjie  first  years  of  Josiah. 
When  in  his  thirteenth  year  of  reign,  prophetic  commission  was 


1 II  Kings  21:  19  ff. 


630 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


given  to  Jeremiah,  he  must  still  condemn  the  burning  of  in¬ 
cense  to  other  gods,  the  immorality  of  the  high  places,  the 
going  after  the  Baals.  Other  nations,  whose  gods  were  not 
even  alive,  have  refused  to  abandon  them,  but  Judah  has 
made  her  gods  more  numerous  than  her  towns.  Like  the 
prophets  of  old,  Jeremiah  expected  attack  from  Assyria;  he 
saw  a  boiling  caldron  facing  the  north,  for  “out  of  the  north 
is  evil  impending  upon  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land.  All 
the  ruling  families  of  the  north  shall  come,  every  one  shall  set 
its  throne  at  the  entrance  to  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  and 
against  all  its  walls  and  against  all  the  cities  of  Judah.” 

“Blow  the  trumpet  in  the  land,  cry  aloud:  ‘Let  us  gather 
together  and  enter  the  fortified  cities/  Raise  a  signal  against 
Zion,  flee,  delay  not;  calamity  is  coming  from  the  north  and 
great  destruction.  A  hot  wind  from  desert  heights  is  coming 
against  my  daughter’s  people;  not  to  winnow  or  to  cleanse,  it 
is  a  full  and  mighty  wind.  Behold,  it  comes  like  the]  clouds, 
its  chariots  are  like  the  whirlwind;  its  horses  are  swifter  than 
eagles,  woe  is  us,  we  are  ruined.  Bandits  come  from  afar,  they 
shout  at  the  cities  of  Judah;  ambush  they  lay  in  the  fields, 
on  all  sides  they  surround  her.  The  whole  land  is  in  flight, 
from  the  noise  of  the  horsemen  and  bowmen;  they  enter  the 
thickets  and  caves,  they  climb  the  rocky  places.  A  nation  I 
bring  from  afar,  a  mighty  and  ancient  nation;  whose  speech 
thou  knowest  not,  nor  understand  their  talking.  An  open 
tomb  is  their  quiver,  all  are  mighty  warriors;  they  shall  eat 
thy  vines  and  thy  fig-trees,  thy  forts  beat  down  like  olives; 
shepherds  shall  come  with  their  flocks,  their  tents  they  shall 
pitch  about  her.”  1 

Zephaniah,  the  great  grandson  of  Hezekiah,  found  it  neces¬ 
sary  to  threaten  the  cutting  off  of  the  shaveling  priests  and  the 
remnant  of  Baal  from  Jerusalem,  those  who  worship  the 
heavenly  host  on  the  housetops,  those  who  swear  in  turn  by 
Yahweh  and  the  king  of  Assyria.  Yahweh  will  therefore  utterly 
consume  all  from  the  face  of  the  ground,  man  and  beast,  the 
birds  of  the  heaven,  the  fish  of  the  sea.  Let  all  hold  their  peace 

1  Jer.  1-6. 


TRAGEDY 


631 


in  the  presence  of  the  Lord  Yahweh,  for  at  hand  is  the  day  of 
Y  ahweh. 

Yahweh  hath  prepared  a  sacrifice,  he  hath  consecrated  his 
guests.  He  will  punish  the  princes  and  king's  sons,  and  those 
clothed  in  foreign  apparel.  “Near  is  the  great  day  of  Yahweh, 
it  is  near  and  hastens  greatly;  lo,  the  sound  of  Yahweh's  day, 
bitterly  cries  the  hero.  That  day  is  a  day  of  wrath,  a  day  of 
distress  and  trouble,  a  day  of  wasteness  and  desolation,  a  day 
of  darkness  and  gloom,  a  day  of  clouds  and  thick  darkness,  a 
day  of  the  trumpet  and  alarm,  against  the  fortified  cities  and 
against  the  high  battlements.  And  I  will  bring  distress 
against  men,  that  they  should  walk  like  the  blind,  since  they 
have  sinned  against  Yahweh;  their  blood  shall  be  poured  out 
as  dust  and  their  flesh  as  excrement.  Neither  their  silver  nor 
their  gold  shall  deliver  them  in  the  day  of  Yahweh 's  wrath, 
but  the  whole  land  shall  be  devoured  by  the  fire  of  his  jealousy; 
for  he  will  make  an  end,  a  terrible  end,  of  all  that  dwell  in  the 
land."  “For  Gaza  shall  be  forsaken  and  Ascalon  a  desolation; 
they  shall  drive  out  Ashdod  at  noon  day  and  Ekron  shall  be 
rooted  up.  Woe  to  the  men  of  the  seacoast,  the  nation  of  the 
Cretans;  Yahweh's  word  is  against  thee,  Canaan,  land  of  the 
Philistines,  I  will  destroy  thee,  there  shall  be  no  inhabitant."  1 

In  the  thirteenth  year  of  Josiah,  that  momentous  626  in 
which  Ashur-bani-apal  died,  the  Judaeans  were  already  plan¬ 
ning  revolt  against  Assyria.  They  have  changed  their  foreign 
policy,  declares  Jeremiah,  but  it  will  avail  them  nothing;  as 
they  have  already  suffered  disgrace  through  Assyria,  so  now 
will  it  be  suffered  through  Egypt.  With  hand  on  head, 
bewailing  their  disgrace,  shall  they  set  forth,  for  Yahweh  hath 
rejected  all  in  whom  they  trust.2 

The  movement  for  independence  came  to  a  head  in  621. 
While  the  repair  of  the  temple  was  under  way,  the  chief  priest 
Hilkiah  found  a  book;  attributed  to  Moses,  it  bears  evident 
traces  of  having  been  composed  no  long  time  previously.  Much 
alarmed  to  discover  that  they  had  not  been  following  the  de¬ 
crees  of  the  great  lawgiver,  Josiah  immediately  summoned  an 
1  Zeph.  1  f.  2  Jer-  2  :  36  ff. 


632 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


assembly  at  which  king  and  people  solemnly  bound  themselves 
to  observe  this  code. 

Since  Judah  was  now  proclaiming  her  independence  as  a 
nation,  her  God  Yahweh  likewise  must  cast  off  his  foreign 
companions,  and  a  long  step  was  taken  towards  monotheism. 
Definite  refusal  of  the  Assyrian  overlordship  was  marked  by 
the  destruction  of  the  altars  which  Manasseh  had  erected  in 
the  two  temple  courts  for  Ashur  and  the  Assyrian  king;  their 
ashes  were  thrown  into  the  Kidron  as  were  the  altars  on  the 
roof  of  the  upper  chamber  of  Ahaz,  to  be  connected  with  the 
sun-dial  ascribed  to  the  same  monarch.  In  the  same  fire 
perished  the  chariots  of  the  sun-god  Shemesh,  whom  the 
Assyrians  knew  as  Shamash,  though  Solomon  himself  had  con¬ 
trasted  Shemesh  with  Yahweh  at  the  dedication  of  his  temple.1 
Human  sacrifices  had  been  celebrated  to  the  king-god  Melech 
in  the  valley  of  the  children  of  Hinnom;  the  site  of  Topheth 
was  defiled  and  so  were  the  high  places  on  the  right  of  the  mount 
of  destruction  where  Solomon  had  built  altars  for  the  Sidonian 
Astart,  the  Moabite  Chemosh,  and  the  Ammonite  Milcom. 
At  the  entrance  to  the  city,  where  was  the  gate  of  the  mayor 
Joshua,  had  been  high  places  for  the  minor  spirits  of  the  coun¬ 
tryside;  within  the  very  precincts  of  Yahweh’s  house  dwelt 
sacred  prostitutes  who  wove  tunics  for  the  Asherah,  the  col¬ 
umn  connected  with  the  worship  of  the  deities  of  fertility.  High 
places  and  residences  were  torn  down,  the  vessels  for  Baal,  the 
Asherah,  and  the  host  of  heaven  were  brought  out  and  with  the 
Asherah  were  committed  to  the  flames  in  the  Kidron;  the  ashes 
were  scattered  over  the  graves  of  the  lower  classes  who  had 
worshipped  such  foreign  gods,  the  place  where  they  had  stood 
was  filled  with  dead  men’s  bones.  All  those  who  had  offered 
incense  to  Baal,  the  sun  and  the  moon,  the  zodiacal  signs  and 
the  heavenly  bodies,  were  slain,  in  particular  the  shaveling 
priests  who  had  sacrificed  in  the  villages  round  about;  the 
other  priests  were  brought  from  their  now  defiled  village 
shrines  and  were  assigned  a  subordinate  position  in  Jerusalem. 

Josiah’s  reforms  were  not  confined  to  Judah;  Bethel  and 

1 1  Kings  8  :  12  f.  as  preserved  in  the  Greek  translation. 


TRAGEDY 


633 


its  companion  shrines  felt  his  heavy  hand  in  the  next  thirteen 
years.  By  the  incorporation  of  the  former  Assyrian  province 
of  Samaria,  the  territory  of  the  little  kingdom  was  more  than 
doubled  in  population  and  in  wealth.  In  the  eyes  of  the  re¬ 
formers,  Yahweh  was  but  rewarding  his  faithful  servant  for  his 
obedience  to  the  long-forgotten  law;  Jeremiah,  however,  op¬ 
posed  the  introduction  of  the  new  code,  insisting,  “I  spake 
not  with  your  fathers  concerning  burnt  offerings/’  and  he 
flatly  declared:  “The  false  pen  of  the  scribe  has  wrought 
falsely.”  1  There  were  many  to  echo  his  words  as  they  thought 
of  the  desecration  of  the  age-old  shrines  of  Bethel  and  Beer- 
sheba  and  Hebron,  where  Yahweh  had  appeared  to  the  fathers; 
perhaps  some  also  perceived  the  complete  divorce  that  was 
soon  to  come  between  the  official  religion  and  the  daily  life  of 
the  villagers.2 

The  records  of  Sin-shar-ishkun  close  with  the  well-known 
appeal:  “May  a  future  prince,  of  the  kings  my  descendants, 
when  this  temple  has  become  ruined,  restore  its  ruins,  with  his 
writings  may  he  place  the  writing  of  my  name;  but  may  he 
who  changes  the  tablet  with  the  writing  of  my  name,  does  not 
inscribe  it  on  the  tablet  which  has  the  writing  of  his  own  name, 
may  the  gods  destroy  his  name,  his  seed,  and  his  posterity.”3 
But  no  son  of  his  was  to  sit  upon  the  throne  in  Ashur,  it  was 
his  son  and  his  posterity  which  was  to  be  destroyed,  his  name 
to  be  forgotten  or  remembered  only  as  an  effeminate  weakling 
who  cumbered  the  ground,  while  his  conquerors  were  to  be 
among  the  best-known  heroes  of  the  ancient  history. 

Already,  there  had  been  established  in  Babylon  a  certain 
Nabu-apal-usur,  better  known  to  us  by  the  Greek  form  of 
Nabopolassar.  In  abasement  before  his  god  Marduk,  the  pious 
monarch  calls  himself  the  “son  of  a  nobody,”  “the  little,  un¬ 
known  among  the  people”;  he  seems  in  reality  to  have  been 
none  other  than  the  son  of  our  old  friend,  Bel-ibni,  whom  we 
last  saw  consolidating  Chaldaean  power  as  viceroy  of  the  Sea- 
lands.  Nabopolassar  was  thus  a  descendant  of  that  great 

1  Jer.  7  :  22;  8:8.  2 II  Kings  23;  cf.  Amer.  Hist.  Rev.,  XX,  566  ff. 

3  Scheil,  Prisme,  51  ff. 


634 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


family  of  Iakin,  which  had  so  dominated  Babylonia  since  its 
first  appearance  more  than  two  centuries  before,  and  whose 
Merodach  Baladan  had  set  an  example  which  his  successors 
could  but  strive  to  emulate. 

Like  his  father  before  him,  Nabopolassar  began  his  career  as 
administrator  of  the  Sealands,  when  Sin-shar-ishkun  had 
learned  that  an  army  was  coming  up  from  the  sea  to  attack 
him.1  The  difficulties  which  followed  the  death  of  Ashur-bani- 
apal  permitted  him  to  secure  his  position  in  Babylon  and  from 
this  year  626  he  acted  as  independent  ruler  and  ordered  his 
subjects  to  date  their  business  records  by  his  year  as  king  of 
Babylon.  While  still  King  of  the  Sealands,  and  therefore  hos¬ 
tile  to  Uruk,  he  had  carried  off  from  that  city  as  spoil  a  tablet 
containing  the  “  Exaltation  of  Ishtar.”  2  A  tablet  of  615  is 
dated  at  Uruk  by  the  rule  of  Sin-shar-ishkun,  but  five  years 
before  a  partisan  of  Nabopolassar  in  Uruk  had  used  the  date  of 
his  royal  master. 

By  616,  all  Babylonia  was  under  his  control,  and  in  that  year 
he  began  the  invasion  of  Mesopotamia.  His  first  advance  was 
up  the  Euphrates  where  the  men  of  Suhi  and  Hindanu  paid 
tribute  without  fighting.  This  was  in  May;  three  months 
later  it  was  reported  that  an  Assyrian  army  was  found  in  the 
city  of  Qablinu.  Nabopolassar  marched  up  to  meet  them  and 
on  the  12th  of  August  the  city  was  taken  after  a  great  battle, 
and  with  it  the  Assyrian  nobles  and  the  Mannai  who  had  come 
from  far-away  Urumia  to  their  aid.  In  the  same  month,  Mane, 
Sahiru,  and  Balihi,  in  the  region  of  the  river  Balih  were  secured; 
in  the  next  Nabopolassar  returned  to  Babylon. 

Nabopolassar  had  reason  for  his  haste.  Early  in  his  reign, 
Psammetichus  I  (664-610)  had  been  a  vassal  of  Ashur-bani- 
apal;  then  he  had  revolted  and  had  freed  Egypt  ;  next  he  had 
assisted  Shamash-shum-ukin  in  his  unfortunate  revolt;  now, 
full  of  years,  and  with  an  Egypt  prosperous  as  never  since  the 
days  of  the  Eighteenth  Dynasty,  he  had  begun  to  dream  of 

1  Berossus,  in  Euseb.,  Chron.,  35. 

2  Thureau-Dangin,  RA.,  XI,  142;  it  was  carried  back  from  Elam  in  Seleucid 
times. 


TRAGEDY 


635 


following  their  example  in  a  conquest  of  Syria.  Assyrian  power 
was  no  longer  felt  along  the  Mediterranean  and  after  twenty- 
nine  years  of  siege,  Ashdod  fell  into  his  hands.1  Nothing  was 
to  be  feared  from  Assyria,  but  a  renewed  Babylonia  was  quite 
contrary  to  his  calculations;  so  the  empire  which  had  called 
him  vassal  in  his  youth  was  supported  in  his  old  age  as  a  buffer 
state  against  the  rising  power  of  another  former  Assyrian  vas¬ 
sal  !  With  the  news  that  Mesopotamia  had  been  invaded, 
Psammetichus  put  his  troops  in  motion  and  only  the  hasty 
departure  of  the  Babylonians  prevented  their  being  overtaken 
at  Qablinu  (October,  616). 

Foiled  on  the  Euphrates,  Nabopolassar  tried  the  line  of  the 
Tigris,  and  in  the  following  March  a  Babylonian  detachment 
secured  Madanu  in  Arrapha  and  drove  back  the  Assyrians  to 
the  Lower  Zab.  From  here,  it  was  an  easy  step  across  the  Tigris 
to  Ashur.  The  inner  wall  of  the  old  sacred  city  had  long  since 
been  covered  with  houses,  the  outer  was  ruinous.  More  re¬ 
cently,  the  exposed  northwest  corner  had  been  masked  by  a 
rough  wall  at  the  level  of  the  moat  and  touching  the  older  line 
of  circumvallation.  We  may  still  follow  the  walk  by  which  the 
sentry  paced  the  summit,  ascend  the  steps  up  which  the  soldiers 
passed  to  hurl  their  spears,  hide  behind  the  battlements  where 
they  took  refuge,  peer  through  the  narrow  apertures  like  up¬ 
right  arrows  through  which  the  archers  shot.  The  siege  was 
begun  in  May,  and  in  June  the  city  was  assaulted;  in  the  mean¬ 
time,  the  Assyrian  king  had  mustered  his  army,  the  siege  was 
raised,  and  the  Babylonians  were  pursued  as  far  as  the  Tekrits 
(Takritain),  where  they  took  refuge  in  the  Birtu,  or  citadel. 
In  his  turn,  Nabopolassar  was  besieged  ten  days,  but  Sin-shar- 
ishkun  had  no  better  fortune  and  the  Assyrian  armies  returned 
home. 

Thus  far,  conditions  were  not  unauspicious  for  the  future; 
Sin-shar-ishkun  had  a  powerful  ally  in  Psammetichus,  Nabo¬ 
polassar  had  been  checked  on  both  Euphrates  and  Tigris. 
Unfortunately  for  Assyria,  this  was  the  moment  chosen  by 
another  enemy  to  enter  the  struggle.  Median  tribes  had  long 

1  Herod.,  ii,  157. 


636 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


ago  been  familiar  to  the  Assyrian  provincial  governors,  but 
no  one  dreamed  of  serious  danger  from  their  presence  on  the 
frontier.  Later  Median  tradition  made  their  first  great  king 
a  certain  Deioces;  in  reality  he  was  a  petty  village  chief 
bested  by  Sargon.1  After  him  they  placed  Fravartish,  or 
Phraortes.  He  was  reported  to  have  brought  under  his  yoke 
the  various  peoples  of  Asia,  including  the  then  little-regarded 
Persians,2  but  he  is  unknown  to  the  inquiries  of  the  sun-god. 
He  was  next  said  to  have  attacked  Assyria,  but  was  defeated 
and  killed  in  battle  with  the  loss  of  the  greater  part  of  his 
followers. 

Authentic  history  is  first  reached  with  Huvakhshatara  or 
Cyaxares.  His  feudal  levies  were  reorganised  and  made  a 
modern  army  with  separation  of  the  various  arms.  By  No¬ 
vember  of  615  he  was  ready  to  act  and  descended  into  Arrapha, 
where  he  secured  a  city. 

Encouraged  by  this  success,  Cyaxares  appeared  before  Nin¬ 
eveh  in  August  of  614.  He  was  unable  to  force  the  walls  and 
must  content  himself  with  the  capture  of  Tarbisu,  the  child¬ 
hood  home  of  Ashur-bani-apal.  He  then  passed  down  the 
Tigris  to  Ashur,  where  a  thin  wall  of  limestone  with  small 
towers  had  been  extended  into  the  ditch;  it  was  still  unfinished 
when  Cyaxares  appeared  before  it.  Nabopolassar  had  no  de¬ 
sire  to  see  all  his  efforts  wasted  and  their  fruits  in  the  hands  of 
a  probable  rival;  he  hurried  off  his  troops  “to  the  aid  of  the 
Median,  ”  but  Cyaxares  had  no  more  desire  to  see  the  old 
Assyrian  capital,  which  had  given  its  name  and  its  god  to  the 
empire,  in  alien  hands.  So  the  city  was  at  once  assaulted;  the 
Babylonian  historian  specially  notes  the  evil  treatment  meted 
out  to  its  chief  men.  So  when  Nabopolassar  arrived  with  his 
army,  he  was  faced  by  an  accomplished  fact.  Now  that  he 
was  in  possession  of  the  ancient  capital  and  had  thus  delimited 
the  bounds  of  his  future  acquisitions,  Cyaxares  was  quite 
willing  to  come  to  terms  with  the  master  of  a  formidable  body 
of  soldiers.  Amid  the  ruins  of  Ashur,  friendship  and  alliance 
was  established,  and  to  seal  the  agreement,  Nebuchadnezzar, 
1  Cf.  p.  243.  2  Herod.,  i,  103. 


TRAGEDY 


637 


son  of  Nabopolassar,  was  married  to  Amyitis,  daughter  of 
Cyaxares’s  son  Astyages.1 

By  this  time,  Suhi  had  returned  to  the  Assyrian  overlordship. 
In  June,  Nabopolassar  took  Rahilu  in  the  midst  of  the  Eu¬ 
phrates  by  a  stone  dike  built  out  from  the  shore.  Anat  was 
next  invested  with  siege-engines  and  a  direct  assault  was  made, 
but  the  assault  failed  and  when  Sin-shar-ishkun  appeared  in 
person,  the  Babylonians  again  retreated  within  the  alluvium. 
It  may  be  that  the  tradition  is  correct  which  tells  how  the 
Assyrians  had  called  in  the  Scythians,  long  their  allies  against 
the  Cimmerians,  for  their  leader  is  said  to  have  been  Madyas, 
son  of  Protothyes,  and  this  is  that  Bartatua  who  had  been  an 
ally  so  desirable  that  Esarhaddon  had  given  him  his  daughter 
in  marriage.2  But  there  is  no  contemporary  evidence  for  the 
further  statement  that  the  Scythians  defeated  the  Medes, 
ruled  Asia  for  twenty-eight  years,  and  were  then  deprived  of 
their  leaders  at  a  treacherous  banquet  given  by  the  Median 
king,3  and  the  tradition  remains  doubtful. 

All  was  ready  for  the  final  assault  upon  Nineveh  by  June  of 
612.  Nabopolassar  and  Cyaxares,  here  called  the  “king  of 
the  Umman  Manda,”  mustered  their  forces  and  marched  up  the 
Tigris.  Three  battles  were  fought  from  June  to  August,  and 
then  the  city  was  assaulted.  The  main  attack  was  directed 
from  the  northeast  and  the  brunt  fell  upon  the  Hatamti  Gate 
at  this  corner.  To  the  south  of  the  gate,  the  moat  is  still  filled 
with  fragments  of  stone  and  of  mud  bricks  from  the  walls, 
heaped  up  when  they  were  breached.  Within  the  gate  are 
traces  of  the  counter-wall  raised  by  the  inhabitants  in  their  last 
extremity,  on  the  line  where  ran  the  city  defences  before  the 
rebuilding  by  Sennacherib.  Our  chronicler  tells  of  the  great 
slaughter  made  of  the  Assyrian  nobles;  the  ash  heaps  and 
calcined  sculptures  still  show  how  intense  was  the  fire  in  which 
the  palaces  and  temples  met  their  doom  at  the  hands  of  the 
Indo-European  barbarians. 

“In  those  days  did  Sin-shar-ishkun”  begins  the  chronicle, 


1  Berossus,  in  Euseb.,  Chron .,  29,  35. 

2  Cf.  p.  360. 


3  Herod.,  i,  103  ff. 


638 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


but  what  Sin-shar-ishkun  did  is  lost  in  the  break.  Tradition 
related  that,  like  the  unhappy  Shamash-shum-ukin,  he  heaped 
up  a  funeral-pile  and  burned  himself  with  all  his  most  cherished 
possessions.  Not  all  the  Assyrians  were  so  hopeless.  A  certain 
noble  named  Ashur-uballit  escaped  from  before  the  Babylonian 
troops.  Cyaxares  returned  home  the  20th  of  September,  and 
Nabopolassar  remained  yet  another  month  in  Assyria  to  collect 
the  wealth  brought  in  from  Nasibina  and  Rasappa.  Thus 
Ashur-uballit  was  enabled  to  assume  the  title  “king  of  Assyria” 
in  a  new  capital,  that  Harran  which  had  once  been  chief  city 
of  Mesopotamia. 

So  it  was  necessary  for  Nabopolassar  to  march  against  this 
new  “land  of  Assyria”  in  611.  Three  cities  were  taken,  the 
last  Rugguliti  near  Til  Barsip  on  the  28th  of  November.  The 
Babylonians  were  back  in  May  of  the  next  year  and  claim  they 
“marched  around  victoriously  in  Assyria,”  but  they  accom¬ 
plished  nothing  and  were  obliged  to  call  in  the  Medes,  who 
arrived  in  November.  Ashur-uballit  and  his  allies  were  driven 
out  and  fled  across  the  Euphrates.  Harran  was  thoroughly 
plundered  of  all  its  enormous  accumulation  of  treasure,  and 
the  temple  of  Sin,  chief  shrine  of  Mesopotamia,  was  left  in  ruins 
by  the  Median  barbarians.1 

Even  the  loss  of  Harran  did  not  damp  the  spirit  of  the  un¬ 
conquered  Ashur-uballit.  With  a  great  army  of  Egyptians 
sent  to  his  aid  by  Necho  II,  who  had  ascended  the  Egyptian 
throne  the  previous  year,  he  appeared  again  in  Mesopotamia 
in  July  of  609.  The  Euphrates  was  crossed,  a  Babylonian 
garrison  cut  off,  and  up  to  September  assault  after  assault  was 
made  on  Harran.  Nabopolassar  now  came  to  the  help  of  his 
troops  and  defeated  Ashur-uballit  in  battle.  In  the  same  year, 
Nabopolassar  secured  Izalla  and  Urashtu.  This  is  the  last 
reference  to  Urartu  or  Haldia.2 

1  Cf.  Nabu-naid,  Langdon,  Konigsinschriften,  218,  272  ff.,  284. 

2  In  place  of  the  traditional  account,  given  in  the  late  classical  writers,  we  now 
have  the  contemporary  record,  published  by  C.  J.  Gadd,  The  Fall  of  Nineveh, 
1923.  That  this  record  could  be  utilised  at  the  last  moment  for  my  book,  I  owe 
to  the  friendly  offices  of  Professors  J.  H.  Breasted  and  Leroy  Waterman,  who 
sent  information  and  the  book  from  England  immediately  upon  its  publication. 


TRAGEDY 


639 


Of  the  fate  of  Ashur-uballit,  we  know  nothing  more.  But 
the  very  next  year,  608,  Necho  appeared  in  Syria  in  person. 
Josiah,  trusting  to  his  righteousness  in  following  the  long-lost 
law  of  Moses,  was  defeated  and  killed  in  the  battle  of  Megiddo, 
and  Necho  swept  on  to  the  Euphrates.  In  all  probability, 
Ashur-uballit  was  in  the  army.1 

An  echo  of  these  operations  is  found  in  two  letters  from  the 
Babylonian  commander-in-chief:  “As  for  the  land  of  Assyria, 
the  day  the  king  my  lord  does  not  mobilise  the  land,  the  people 
of  Kar  Duniash  will  revolt.  The  treasure  of  the  land  according 
to  thy  word  have  I  taken,  the  treasure  of  the  land  according 
to  thy  word  have  I  not  taken,  not  without  thy  orders  have  I 
taken  the  city  of  Urizu,  I  have  thy  tablet  and  thy  seal.  Not 
without  thy  orders  have  I  taken  the  city  of  Rimishu,  I  have 
thy  tablet  and  thy  seal.  Not  without  thy  orders  have  I 
taken  the  cities  of  Kur  and  Madaru,  I  have  thy  tablet  and 
thy  seal.  The  son  of  Zikri,  who  dwells  in  Ur,  is  but  a  slave, 
yet  has  he  injured  me;  as  I  have  informed  my  lord  king,  he 
has  not  done  me  justice.  I  and  Uzub-shilu  are  the  chief  offi¬ 
cials  of  the  lord  king,  yet  he  has  detained  me,  and  my  broth¬ 
ers  he  has  beaten  with  a  stick. 

“As  for  what  my  lord  king  has  inquired,  c Shall  I  go  down 
after  Kamu  and  the  rest  ?  5  the  king  has  given,  let  the  king  take 
away.  The  king  has  ordered:  ‘Send  the  incense  grains  which 
you  have  received  from  the  hands  of  Ardia,  son  of  Zikri,  who 
dwells  in  Ur.5  I  would  do  all  that  he  might  desire,  but  he  has 
not  brought  it.  If  it  please  the  lord  king,  let  me  give  instruc¬ 
tions  to  bring  it  from  the  land  of  Kumina  and  give  it  to  my  lord 
king.  The  day  the  king  went  to  Bel-malki-denu,  before  the 
face  of  the  king  he  ate  food,  date-wine  and  grape-wine  for  his 
thirst  he  drank,  oil  he  took.55 

Nabopolassar  has  ordered:  “To  his  cities  fire,  to  his  cities 
fire  do  thou  set,  in  city  and  field  make  desolation.55  “As  the 
king  my  lord  has  said,  so  have  I  done.  To  his  cities  fire,  to  his 
cities  fire  I  have  set,  in  city  and  field  have  I  made  desolation. 
The  captivity  of  Ashur  have  I  dragged  through  the  desert. 

m  Kings  23:29  ff. 


640 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


When  I  seized  them,  I  struck  down  their  house,  the  head  of  the 
prince  I  cut  off,  to  the  king  my  lord  I  sent  it.  When  I  turned 
my  face  to  the  fortresses,  the  commanders  of  the  fortresses 
cried  out:  ‘The  king,  where  is  he?  Tell  us,  the  king,  where  is 
he?  The  road  for  our  feet  establish.7  I  replied:  ‘The  king 
has  pitched  his  camp  at  Baghdad,  it  is  to  his  commanders  he 
gives  orders.7  I  set  my  face  against  the  Assyrians.77 1 

Briefly  and  almost  contemptuously  Nabopolassar  writes  the 
epitaph  of  the  overthrown  empire:  “I  slaughtered  the  land  of 
Subarum,  I  turned  the  hostile  land  into  heaps  and  ruins.77 
“The  Assyrian,  who  since  distant  days  had  ruled  over  all  the 
peoples  and  with  his  heavy  yoke  had  brought  injury  to  the 
people  of  the  Land,  their  feet  from  Akkad  I  turned  back,  their 
yoke  I  threw  off.77  2 

A  generation  later,  the  last  Babylonian  ruler,  himself  about 
to  be  overthrown  by  Iranian  kinsmen  of  the  Medes,  drew  the 
moral  from  the  sins  of  Assyria,  and  told  how  the  brave  king  of 
the  Umman  Manda  “destroyed  the  shrines  of  the  Assyrian  gods 
entirely,  and  the  cities  of  Akkad  which  had  been  hostile  to  the 
king  of  Akkad  and  had  not  brought  him  aid,  so  that  he  destroyed 
their  shrines  and  laid  them  desolate  like  the  storm  wind.77  3 

Nowhere  did  the  events  of  this  stirring  time  make  a  deeper 
impression  than  in  Judah.  Zephaniah  cries  out:  “Yahweh 
will  stretch  forth  his  hand  against  the  north  and  will  destroy 
Assyria,  he  will  make  Nineveh  a  desolation  and  dry  like  the 
wilderness.  Herds  shall  lie  down  in  the  midst  of  her,  all  the 
beasts  of  the  nations.  The  pelican  and  the  porcupine  shall 
lodge  in  her  capitals,  the  owl  shall  hoot  in  the  windows,  ravens 
shall  be  on  the  thresholds.  This  is  the  daughter  of  joy  that 
abode  without  care,  that  said  in  her  heart :  ‘  I  alone  am  alive, 
none  is  like  unto  me.7  How  is  she  become  desolate,  a  place 
for  beasts  to  lie  down  in  !  Each  passer-by  shall  hiss  and  shake 
his  fist  at  her.77  4 

1  CT.,  XXII,  46  ff.;  Thompson,  Late  Bab .  Letters ,  No.  247  f. :  Martin,  Lettres, 
No.  247  f. 

2  Nabopolassar,  1,  3,  4;  Langdon,  Konigsinschriften,  60  ff. 

3  Nabu-naid,  Prism,  II,  2ff.;  Langdon,  Konigsinschriften,  272  ff. 

4  Zeph.  2  : 13  ff.;  cf.  p.  486. 


TRAGEDY 


641 


Nahum’s  whole  prophecy  is  a  savage  rejoicing  over  the  down¬ 
fall  of  Assyria,  for  Nahum  was  an  Israelite  settled  in  exile  at 
Elkosh,  under  a  mountain  slope  north  of  Nineveh: 

“He  that  shatters  in  pieces  has  come  up  against  thee;  keep 
the  wall,  guard  the  way,  gird  thy  loins,  make  thy  strength 
the  utmost.  The  shield  of  his  heroes  is  red,  his  warriors  are 
clad  in  scarlet;  they  prepare  the  chariots  today,  the  chariot 
horses  are  eager.  The  chariots  rage  in  the  fields,  they  rush 
to  and  fro  in  the  plazas ;  their  appearance  is  like  that  of  torches, 
they  dart  about  like  the  lightenings.  He  reads  out  the  list  of 
his  nobles,  in  their  eagerness  they  stumble;  they  hasten  to 
reach  the  walls,  the  battering  ram  is  made  ready. 

“The  river  sluices  are  opened,  the  palace  walls  are  crumbling; 
the  queen  is  stripped  of  her  clothing,  they  are  leading  her  away 
captive;  her  handmaidens  moan  like  doves,  upon  their  breasts 
they  are  beating.  Nineveh  was  a  tank  of  water,  from  it  they 
are  now  escaping;  ‘ Stand,  stand/  they  cry,  not  one  of  them 
looks  backward.  Take  ye  the  spoil  of  silver,  take  ye  the  spoil 
of  gold;  there  is  no  end  to  the  store,  an  abundance  of  all  goodly 
objects.  She  is  empty  and  void  and  waste,  hearts  melt,  knees 
shake;  there  is  pain  in  all  loins  and  pale  have  waxed  all  the 
faces. 

“Where  is  the  den  of  lions,  the  cavern  of  young  lions;  where 
prowled  the  king  of  beasts,  and  his  whelp  with  none  to  af¬ 
fright  them?  Enough  he  tore  for  his  whelps,  enough  for  his 
mate  he  strangled;  he  filled  his  caves  with  prey,  he  filled  his 
dens  with  ravin. 

“Behold,  I  am  against  thee,  saith  Yahweh  of  Hosts;  thy  lair 
I  will  burn  with  smoke,  thy  young  the  sword  shall  devour. 
I  will  cut  off  thy  prey  from  the  earth,  no  more  be  heard  thy 
messenger’s  voices. 

“Woe  to  the  bloody  city,  full  of  lies  and  rapine;  the  crack 
of  the  whip  and  the  thunder  of  the  rumbling  wheels,  the  pranc¬ 
ing  horse  and  the  bounding  chariot,  the  horseman  mounting 
and  the  flash  of  sword,  the  gleam  of  spear  and  a  mass  of  the 
slain,  a  heap  of  corpses,  there  is  no  end  of  dead  bodies. 

“For  the  many  infidelities  of  the  well  favored  harlot,  the 


642 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


mistress  of  incantations,  who  sold  states  for  her  wicked  deeds 
and  clans  through  her  incantations,  behold,  saith  Yahweh  of 
Hosts,  I  am  against  thee,  I  will  strip  thee  of  thy  clothing,  and 
show  thy  shame  to  the  nations.  Filth  I  will  cast  upon  thee 
and  disgrace  thee,  I  will  set  thee  up  as  a  warning,  all  who  see 
thee  shall  flee,  shall  cry:  ‘ Desolate  Nineveh,  who  shall  bewail 
her  V 

“  Better  art  thou  than  No  Ammon,  that  lay  midst  the  rivers, 
the  sea  was  her  rampart,  her  wall  was  the  water?  Ethiopia 
was  her  strength,  Punt  and  the  Libyans  her  allies;  yet  she  was 
carried  away,  they  led  her  into  exile.  At  the  head  of  each 
street  were  her  children,  beaten  to  pieces;  lots  they  cast  for 
her  nobles,  her  leaders  they  bound  in  fetters.  Thou  too  shalt 
be  drunken,  thou  too  shalt  be  faint  thou  likewise  shalt  seek 
refuge. 

“All  thy  forts  are  like  fig  trees,  like  the  first  ripe  figs  thy 
defenders;  if  they  be  shaken  they  fall  right  into  the  mouth  of 
the  eater.  Thine  the  men  who  have  changed  into  women,1 
open  the  gates  of  thy  land  to  the  enemy,  the  bars  of  thy  gates 
hath  the  fire  devoured. 

“Water  draw  for  the  siege,  thy  forts  do  thou  strengthen; 
descend  to  the  clay  pits,  tread  clay,  lay  hold  of  the  brick  mould. 
There  shall  the  fire  devour  thee,  the  sword  shall  cut  thee  off. 
Make  thyself  many  as  the  locusts,  multiply  as  the  grasshopper: 
above  stars  of  the  heavens  increase  thy  traders,  make  thy 
guards  as  the  locusts,  thy  scribes  as  the  grasshoppers,  that 
camp  on  cold  days  in  the  hedges;  when  comes  the  sun,  they 
flee  and  no  one  knows  their  abode.  Thy  shepherds  are  in  slum¬ 
ber,  thy  nobles  have  found  rest;  thy  people  are  scattered  in 
flight  on  the  mountains,  none  is  there  to  bring  them  together. 
For  thy  hurt  is  no  healing,  thy  wounds  are  all  mortal,  all  that 
hear  of  thy  fate  smite  their  hands  in  rejoicing,  for  on  whom 
hath  not  thy  iniquity  constantly  fallen?”  2 

Nahum  spoke  in  anger;  still  more  impressive  is  the  epitaph 

1  Cf.  p.  174. 

2  Nahum  2  f.;  cf.  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  “Nahum,”  in  International  Critical  Com¬ 
mentary. 


I 


Fig.  175.  REPUTED  TOMB  OF  THE  PROPHET  NAHUM  AT  ELKOSH, 

NEAR  NINEVEH. 


Fig.  176. 


DESCENDANTS  OF  THE  “LOST  TEN  TRIBES” 
HOME  IN  MESOPOTAMIA. 


IN  THEIR 


pvty&hit 


TRAGEDY 


643 


prepared  by  Ezekiel  as  he  recalls  to  the  Egyptian  king  the 
fate  of  the  empire  he  would  rival: 

“Ashur  was  a  cedar  in  Lebanon,  and  fair  were  his  boughs; 
high  was  he  in  stature,  in  the  clouds  was  his  summit.  He  was 
nourished  by  waters,  the  deep  made  him  grow;  its  streams 
encircled  his  garden,  to  all  the  field  went  its  channels.  Above 
all  trees  of  the  field  was  his  stature  exalted,  many  were  his 
boughs;  wide  spread  his  branches,  because  of  the  many  waters. 
All  birds  of  the  sky  made  their  nest  in  his  boughs;  all  beasts 
of  the  field  bore  their  young  ’neath  his  branches.  Thus  was 
he  fair  in  his  height  and  in  the  length  of  his  branches;  for  his 
root  was  by  many  waters.  Cedars  in  God’s  garden  could  not 
compare  with  him,  fir  trees  were  not  like  his  boughs;  plane 
trees  were  not  like  his  branches,  no  tree  in  God’s  garden 
equalled  his  beauty. 

“  Since  he  was  lofty  in  stature  and  his  top  was  among  the 
clouds,  I  gave  him  to  the  hands  of  the  foreign  hero  who  de¬ 
stroyed  him.  Strangers,  most  frightful  of  nations,  hacked 
him  down,  left  him  fallen  on  the  mountains;  in  all  valleys  his 
branches  lie  fallen,  by  all  streams  his  boughs  lie  broken.  On 
his  ruin  perch  all  birds  of  the  sky,  dwell  all  beasts  of  the  field 
on  his  branches;  that  none  of  the  trees  by  the  waters  should 
exalt  themselves  in  their  stature.  That  they  lift  not  their 
tops  to  the  clouds,  that  their  mighty  stand  not  up  in  their 
height,  all  those  that  drink  water.  They  all  are  delivered  to 
death,  to  the  nethermost  parts  of  the  earth;  in  the  midst  of 
frail  children  of  men,  with  them  that  descend  to  the  Pit. 

“On  the  day  he  went  down  to  Sheol,  I  made  the  deep  mourn 
him ;  its  streams  I  restrained,  I  stayed  the  assemblage  of  waters. 
For  him  I  made  Lebanon  dark,  I  made  nations  to  quake  at 
his  fall,  when  I  thrust  him  down  to  Sheol.  All  the  trees  of  Eden, 
the  choicest  and  best  of  Lebanon,  all  that  drink  water  were 
comforted,  in  the  nethermost  parts  of  the  earth.  They  too 
go  with  him  to  Sheol,  to  them  that  are  slain  by  the  sword; 
yea,  his  helpers  shall  perish,  that  dwelt  in  his  shade  mid  the 
nations. 

“Ashur  is  there  with  his 


comrades,  the  graves  are  round 


644 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


about  him ;  all  slain  they  have  fallen  by  the  sword,  in  the  depths 
of  the  Pit  are  their  graves.  Round  about  his  grave  are  his 
comrades,  all  of  them  slain;  fallen  are  they  by  the  sword,  who 
caused  fear  in  the  land  of  the  living/7  1 

1  Ezek.  31:  3  ff.;  32 : 22  ff.;  cf.  C.  H.  Toy,  Ezekiel. 


CHAPTER  X L I X 


THE  “ASSYRIAN  WOLF” 

“The  Assyrian  came  down  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold.”  It  is 
needless  to  continue,  for  we  all  received  our  first  impression 
of  Assyrian  character  from  Byron’s  ringing  lines.  If  our  youth¬ 
ful  mind  found  the  sermon  too  dull  and  we  turned  to  the  Bible 
left  carelessly  in  the  pew,  we  read  of  “the  den  of  lions,”  “the 
bloody  city,  full  of  lies  and  rapine,”  “that  caused  fear  in  the 
land  of  the  living.”  Such  were  some  of  the  indictments  hurled 
by  the  Hebrew  prophets  against  their  oppressors. 

In  our  maturity,  we  open  the  pages  of  a  book  by  a  distin¬ 
guished  Orientalist  and  learn  that  “Assyria  was  the  nest  of 
the  bird  of  prey  whence,  during  nearly  ten  centuries,  set  forth 
the  most  terrible  expeditions  which  have  ever  flooded  the  world 
with  blood.  Ashur  was  its  god,  plunder  its  morality,  material 
pleasure  its  ideal,  cruelty  and  terror  its  means.  No  people 
was  ever  more  abject  than  those  of  Ashur;  no  sovereigns  were 
ever  more  despotic,  more  covetous,  more  vindictive,  more 
pitiless,  more  proud  of  their  crimes.  Assyria  sums  up  in  itself 
all  the  vices.  Aside  from  bravery,  it  offers  not  a  single  virtue. 
One  must  leave  over  the  whole  of  the  world’s  history  to  find 
here  and  there,  in  the  most  troubled  periods,  public  crimes 
whose  frightfulness  may  be  compared  with  the  horrors  daily 
committed  by  the  men  of  Nineveh  in  the  name  of  their  god. 
The  Assyrian  is  not  an  artist,  not  a  man  of  literature,  not  a 
lawgiver;  he  is  a  parasite,  basing  his  organisation  of  pillage  on 
a  formidable  military  power.  As  far  as  he  extended  his  empire, 
he  ruled  but  he  did  not  govern;  his  appetites  were  without 
limit.  In  him  is  incarnate,  to  the  highest  degree,  the  defects 
and  vices  of  Asiatic  political  systems.”  1 

Nahum  is  indeed  out-Heroded.  What  we  have  read  is  a 
triumph  of  the  rhetorical  art — but  does  it  represent  the  sober 
verdict  of  history? 

1  De  Morgan,  Premieres  Civilisations,  1909,  340  ff. 

645 


646 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


Now  the  professional  historian  is  suspicious  by  nature.  He 
has  learned  to  his  discomfort  that  the  ancient  cynicism,  “  His¬ 
tory  is  a  lie  agreed  upon/’  applies  with  full  force  to  many  of 
the  popular  beliefs  concerning  the  past.  He  is  temperamentally 
shy  of  extreme  views,  knowing  that  truth  generally  takes  the 
middle  course.  As  he  leaves  over  the  pages  of  universal  his¬ 
tory,  whether  for  troubled  or  untroubled  periods,  he  finds  in 
the  original  sources  such  an  amazing  recital  of  public  and 
private  frightfulness  as  would  never  be  dreamed  by  the  casual 
reader  of  our  popular  manuals.  These  examples  seem  to  be 
somewhat  evenly  divided  among  races  and  peoples;  none  are 
found  free  from  stain,  all  furnish  much  that  appeals  to  his 
very  human  sympathy.  The  historian’s  task  is  neither  to 
whitewash  nor  to  blacken,  it  is  to  understand;  it  is  worth  our 
while  to  look  at  the  facts,  to  see  whether  the  Assyrian  is  an 
exception  to  the  general  run  of  historical  individuals. 

“ The  Assyrian  was  cruel.”  So  he  was.  But  it  is  something 
more  than  a  rhetorical  question  when  we  inquire  whether  he 
was  more  cruel  than  others  have  been  in  times  past  and  pres¬ 
ent.  For  example  he  cut  off  heads,  while  the  Egyptians  pre¬ 
ferred  hands  or  phalloi  and  our  own  Indians  scalps;  the 
English  came  nearer  the  Assyrian  custom  with  their  rotting 
heads  of  traitors  spiked  on  Tower  Gate  in  London.  Where 
the  Assyrian  impaled,  the  Roman  crucified,  the  Englishman 
quartered  and  drew;  if  the  Assyrians  burned  youth  and  maidens 
in  the  fire,  for  each  recorded  example  in  the  Assyrian  annals, 
we  can  literally  give  a  thousand  cases  of  witches,  another  thou¬ 
sand  of  heretics  burned  by  Christian  orders.  War  is  after  all 
nothing  but  war,  a  reversion  to  savagery;  there  is  not  an  As¬ 
syrian  atrocity  which  has  not  its  parallel  or  its  equivalent  in 
the  civilised  history  of  the  last  hundred  years.  We  may  with 
perfect  justice  condemn  war  and  its  cause,  imperialism;  as  a 
warrior  and  an  imperialist,  the  Assyrian  was  no  better  and 
no  worse  than  his  present-day  descendants. 

In  his  own  records,  one  type  of  atrocity  is  conspicuous  for 
its  absence.  The  Old  Testament  has  made  us  only  too  familiar 
with  unmentionable  crimes  against  women,  and  we  never  have 


THE  “  ASSYRIAN  WOLF  ” 


647 


been  able  to  accept  the  blessing  the  pious  psalmist  invokes 
upon  those  who  dash  the  little  ones  of  the  enemy  against  the 
stones.  No  student  of  war  would  dare  assert  that  such  crimes 
were  not  committed  by  battle-crazed  Assyrians;  the  fact  that 
there  is  not  a  single  mention  of  such  action  in  the  royal  records 
shows  the  same  sense  of  decency  which  refuses  to  represent 
nude  captive  women  in  the  sculptures.  In  ancient  times,  the 
theory  held  that  captive  women  were  to  satisfy  lust  and  then 
were  to  be  killed  or  cast  away,  or  at  best  retained  as  slaves; 
the  newly  discovered  code  provides  specifically  and  in  detail 
the  ceremonies  by  which  the  Assyrian  soldier  might  make  the 
captive  woman  his  legal  wife.  How  great  an  advance  is  marked 
by  this  law  will  be  appreciated  by  any  one  who  knows  the 
ancient  theory  and  practice. 

“No  sovereign  was  ever  more  pitiless.7’  It  seems  hardly 
possible  that  the  author  of  this  statement  had  ever  read  the 
Assyrian  annals.  Example  after  example  may  be  cited  from 
the  preceding  pages  where  enemies,  nay,  even  rebels,  were 
forgiven,  were  granted  rings  and  clothes  of  honour,  their  gods 
were  repaired  and  restored,  their  territory  increased.1  That 
these  men  frequently  permitted  their  patriotism  or  their  am¬ 
bition  to  get  the  better  of  their  gratitude,  that  costly  wars 
resulted  from  misplaced  mercy,  did  not  deter  the  Assyrians 
from  continuing  the  practice.  The  majority  of  Biblical  critics 
are  confident  that  the  story  the  poor  old  Chronicler  tells  of 
Manasseh’s  rebellion  and  forgiveness2  is  made  out  of  whole 
cloth.  They  would  not  be  so  confident  if  they  realised  that 
only  seven  years  after  Manasseh’s  rebellion  Ashur-bani-apal 
did  exactly  the  same  thing,  down  to  details,  when  he  forgave 
Necho  of  Egypt.3 

“No  sovereign  was  more  proud  of  his  crimes.”  This  is  quite 
true.  The  Assyrian  in  his  records  makes  himself  out  a  very 
bad  fellow  indeed.  He  was  in  fact  quite  as  human  as  the  rest 
of  us;  it  is  human  nature  to  desire  to  be  thought  worse,  as  well 
as  better,  than  we  really  are.  Besides,  there  was  a  very  practical 
reason  for  a  recital  of  frightfulness,  the  prevention  of  revolt. 

1  Cf.  p.  377.  2  Cf.  p.  384.  3  Cf.  p.  416. 


648 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


The  Assyrian  has  been  a  very  successful  liar  indeed,  for  his 
statements  have  been  regularly  accepted  at  face  value.  There 
is  no  excuse  for  the  display  of  so  touching  but  childlike  a  faith 
on  the  part  of  the  Orientalist,  for  the  official  Assyrian  records 
demand  as  drastic  a  higher  criticism  as  has  ever  been  inflicted 
upon  any  part  of  the  Old  Testament.  We  may  compare  one 
record  with  another,  one  edition  with  an  earlier,  an  Assyrian 
statement  with  that  of  a  Hebrew,  the  pictorial  with  the  writ¬ 
ten,  and  at  every  stage  we  shall  have  plentiful  examples  of 
untruth. 

Assyrians  have  been  accused  of  spilling  oceans  of  blood; 
they  did  so — in  their  statistics.  All  historians  know  that  statis¬ 
tics  of  enemy  loss  are  enormously  overestimated,  even  in  these 
days  of  statistical  associations  and  professors  of  statistics. 
Yet  it  has  been  the  fashion  of  many  Orientalists,  not  merely 
to  accept  Assyrian  statistics  at  face  value,  but,  if  there  was 
a  choice  of  numbers,  to  take  the  higher !  We  may  recall  a 
few  illustrations  of  what  the  Assyrian  statistician  could  make 
his  figures  perform. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  case  of  the  six  thousand  Ara¬ 
maeans  defeated  by  Ashur-nasir-apal,  with  a  loss  of  six  thousand 
five  hundred,  leaving  enough  to  be  twice  more  defeated  with 
heavy  loss  and  a  remnant  to  die  of  thirst  in  the  wilderness.1 
Ahab  and  his  allies  at  Qarqara  undoubtedly  checked  the  ad¬ 
vance  of  Shalmaneser  III.  Observe  the  statistics:  at  first  fif¬ 
teen  thousand  of  the  enemy  were  killed;  as  later  editions  were 
prepared,  the  careful  scribe  increased  the  numbers  to  twenty 
thousand  five  hundred,  and  then,  twenty-five  thousand,  while 
the  last  effort  brought  it  up  to  twenty-nine  thousand.2  Re¬ 
call  the  feat  of  the  scribes  of  Sargon  who  in  seven  short  years 
increased  the  sheep  captured  in  a  little  mountain  settlement 
from  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty-five  to  one  hun¬ 
dred  thousand  two  hundred  and  twenty-five.3 

During  the  larger  part  of  the  ten  centuries  cited  by  our 
Orientalist,  Assyria  was  in  no  condition  to  wage  offensive  war. 
We  do  have  the  record  of  every  year  for  a  quarter  of  that  time, 
1  Cf.  p.  92.  2  Cf.  p.  136.  ^  Cf.  p.  242. 


THE  “  ASSYRIAN  WOLF  ” 


649 


from  890  to  640,  and  this  is  the  great  age  of  Assyrian  imperial¬ 
ism.  Of  these  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  wars  are  listed 
for  one  hundred  and  eighty.  No  wonder  the  unwary  student 
jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Assyrians  were  naught  but 
“ birds  of  prey77  whose  only  business  was  to  wage  war. 

A  little  analysis  will  show  how  few  were  the  really  important 
wars.  Out  of  the  hundred  and  eighty,  at  the  most  liberal  esti¬ 
mate  the  king  and  the  royal  army  were  present  in  not  over 
fifty,  and  half  that  number  would  probably  be  nearer  the  truth. 
Take  as  an  illustration  the  campaign  against  Ashdod  in  713. 
This  has  always  been  considered  a  major  operation,  one  of 
those  which  deluged  the  world  with  blood.  The  Hebrew 
prophet  Isaiah  proves  that  the  king  was  not  in  charge  at  all, 
and  an  inscription  which  is  not  generally  known  to  scholars 
shows  that  just  four  hundred  and  twenty  men  made  up  the 
attacking  force.  This  is  a  major  operation  among  these  years 
of  warfare ! 

Nor  were  these  one  hundred  and  eighty  years  of  war  all 
devoted  to  offensive  operations.  The  Haldian  annals,  for 
example,  show  that  the  majority  of  those  listed  against  that 
country  were  to  meet  Haldian  attacks,  one  of  which  penetrated 
to  within  twenty-five  miles  of  Nineveh.  A  whole  group  were 
due  to  attacks  or  intrigues  by  Babylonia,  by  Elam,  by  Egypt, 
by  Phrygia.  The  letters  cover  less  than  a  hundred  years  but 
they  show  that  not  a  few  of  the  listed  campaigns  were  of  a 
hundred  or  so  men  sent  out  by  the  provincial  governor  against 
Medes  or  Arabs  who  were  continuously  harassing  the  settled 
agriculturalists.  Not  a  few  were  necessitated  by  the  ravages 
of  the  Aramaean  nomads  in  Babylonia. 

A  single  generation  is  covered  by  the  inquiries  of  the  sun- 
god.  Not  only  do  they  support  the  letters  in  showing  that 
Esarhaddon  and  Ashur-bani-apal  were  not  engaging  in  wars 
of  offence  on  the  north  and  east  frontiers,  they  prove  a  terrible 
danger,  threatening  the  very  existence  of  the  empire,  and  they 
justify  the  frantic  fear  which  was  only  masked  in  public  by 
the  pompous  claims  of  victories.  Had'  we  equally  full  records 
from  the  other  periods,  it  would  doubtless  be  shown  that  a 


650 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


very  small  proportion  indeed  of  the  years  in  these  ten  centuries 
were  devoted  to  wars  of  pure  offence.  As  well  might  we  call 
Rome  a  “bird  of  prey”  because  the  temple  of  Janus  was  rarely 
closed,  or  apply  the  same  term  to  the  empire  on  whose  flag 
the  sun  never  sets  because  there  is  always  some  frontier  war, 
or  to  the  United  States,  with  its  almost  uninterrupted  series 
of  Indian  conflicts.  On  a  rational  evaluation  of  the  evidence, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  total  killed  in  all  the  Assyrian 
wars  equalled  the  number  destroyed  in  those  same  lands  dur¬ 
ing  the  Great  War  alone. 

“As  far  as  he  extended  his  empire,  he  ruled  but  he  did  not 
govern.”  Here,  at  least,  is  an  accusation  which  will  not  be 
supported  by  the  majority  of  Orientalists,  for  it  is  generally 
recognised  that  the  Assyrian  Empire  marks  the  first  great  ad¬ 
vance  in  efficient  imperialism.  Before  Assyrian  times,  empire 
was  of  the  simplest,  the  greatest  conqueror  was  merely  a  “king 
of  kings,”  the  so-called  empire  was  simply  an  agglomeration 
of  organically  separate  states.  All  that  was  needed  was  a 
weak  ruler  at  the  head  and  the  empire  separated  automatically 
into  its  former  components. 

Assyria  passed  beyond  that  stage  at  a  very  early  date.  For 
the  first  time  in  history,  we  have  a  real  empire  with  its  sub¬ 
divisions  no  longer  potential  states  but  administrative  units, 
whose  organisation  was  not  based  on  historical  accident  but 
on  administrative  efficiency.  At  its  head  was  no  longer  a  sub¬ 
ject  king,  but  an  Assyrian  official,  in  daily  communication 
with  the  capital,  under  close  supervision,  acting  under  de¬ 
tailed  and  definite  orders,  and  subject  to  immediate  recall 
and  punishment.  This  was  the  system  transmitted  to  the 
Persians,  to  the  successors  of  Alexander,  to  Rome,  and  so  to 
the  moderns.  Whether  we  admire  imperialism  or  not,  it  is 
the  simple  fact  that  modern  empires  owe  their  government  of 
dependencies  to  Assyria. 

“No  sovereign  was  ever  more  despotic.”  In  theory,  Assyria 
might  have  a  god-king,  the  practice  was  far  removed  from 
despotism.  The  king  must  rule  under  the  iron  reign  of  laws, 
of  religion,  of  society,  of  political  theory,  and  when  he  de- 


THE  “ASSYRIAN  WOLF” 


651 


parted  from  them,  he  did  so  at  his  peril.  The  last  Shalmaneser, 
for  instance,  revoked  the  privileges  of  the  old  capital  Ashur; 
he  died  the  death  and  the  usurping  Sargon  restored  these  privi¬ 
leges.1  Priestly  control  is  well  illustrated  by  the  letter  in  which 
the  hungry  and  thirsty  Ashur-bani-apal  is  told  he  must  fast 
for  the  good  of  his  people  on  the  New  Year’s  Day  until  the 
new  moon  appears  to  end  his  sufferings.2  Adad-shum-usur 
flatly  tells  Esarhaddon  to  his  face  that  when  he  divides  his 
kingdom  he  is  doing  what  the  gods  would  not  do  in  heaven.3 
Ashur-bani-apal  must  humbly  appeal  to  the  citizens  of  Baby¬ 
lon  not  to  support  his  rebel  brother  and  recite  the  good  he 
has  done  them.4 

“No  people  was  more  abject.”  We  turn  from  these  letters 
to  the  imperial  free  cities,  with  their  charters  of  freedom  from 
taxes,  their  chartered  rights,  their  trading  permitted  to  the 
four  corners  of  the  earth  and  to  all  tongues.  We  listen  to 
the  citizens  of  Babylon  bluntly  standing  up  for  their  rights.5 
As  well  might  we  say  that  the  citizens  of  the  imperial  free 
cities  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  abject  subjects  of  a  pitiless 
despotism. 

The  statement  that  there  was  no  Assyrian  lawgiver  is  un¬ 
fortunate  rather  for  the  author  than  for  the  Assyrians,  for  we 
now  possess  important  fragments  of  a  law  which  on  the  face 
of  it  was  prepared  by  Assyrians  and  to  meet  Assyrian  con¬ 
ditions.  Some  of  its  laws  are  as  grim  as  those  which  disgraced 
our  American  statute-books  a  century  ago;  on  the  other  hand, 
we  find  here  the  surprising  belief  that  the  woman  taken  in 
war  may  be  made  a  wife  with  full  privileges.  Here  too  we 
learn  of  the  destitute  widow  whose  sons  are  to  support  her 
with  food  and  drink;  as  the  bride  whom  one  loves  shall  they 
bind  themselves  to  her.  We  do  not  expect  romance  in  a  law 
code,  yet  what  visions  of  conjugal  and  filial  love  are  conjured 
up  by  this  one  sentence. 

“The  Assyrian  was  not  an  artist.”  The  Assyrian  might 
proudly  have  made  reply:  “If  you  wish  an  answer,  look  about 

1  Cf.  p.  206.  2  Cf .  p.  602.  3  Cf.  p.  397. 

4  Cf.  p.  442.  B  Cf.  p.  432. 


652 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


you.”  In  the  rather  large  ignorance  of  the  material  side  of 
Babylonian  civilisation  which  has  endured  almost  to  our  own 
day,  it  has  been  taken  for  granted  that  the  Assyrians  were 
the  mere  copyists  of  their  predecessors.  Now  that  we  have 
the  evidence  from  both  sides,  the  question  may  be  considered 
settled.  Much  of  their  technic  was  borrowed  from  Babylonia, 
much  from  the  Hittites,  the  Haldians,  or  the  Egyptians.  The 
result  was  not  a  mere  physical  but  a  chemical  mixture,  it  was 
Assyrian  to  the  core.  Particularly  must  we  admire  the  bas- 
reliefs,  which  a  high  authority  in  art  once  stated  were  the  best 
the  world  produced  before  Phidias;  he  might  not  verify  this 
statement  to-day,  but  the  very  fact  that  it  could  be  made 
sufficiently  recognises  the  high  quality  of  Assyrian  art. 

“The  Assyrian  was  no  man  of  literature.”  The  argument 
seems  to  be  about  as  follows:  Ashur-bani-apal  copied  Baby¬ 
lonian  works  for  his  libraries,  therefore,  there  was  no  native 
Assyrian  literature.  With  this  attitude  general,  it  is  natural 
that  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  isolate  the  products  of  As¬ 
syria  from  those  brought  from  the  south.  Yet  one  need  not 
read  far  before  one  finds  additions  made  by  Assyrian  scribes, 
native  Assyrian  myths,  prayers  of  Assyrian  princes,  and  as 
to  the  letters,  some  present  the  colloquial  Assyrian,  pure  and 
undefiled,  and  with  a  tang  which  makes  them  real  literature. 

It  seems  strange  that  any  one  could  read  the  royal  annals 
and  still  deny  literary  sense  to  the  Assyrians.  Babylonians 
were  not  historically  minded  and  few  are  the  annals.  Assyria 
produced  the  first  literary  historians.  The  average  annals  in¬ 
scription  is  a  detailed,  fairly  sober  recital,  shot  through  with 
occasional  flashes  which  remind  us  that  we  are  still  dealing 
with  a  people  akin  to  those  who  produced  the  Arabian  Nights. 
Now  and  then  they  lapse  into  pure  literature,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  gorgeous  purple  patches  of  the  Tablet  Inscription  of 
Sargon.  Would  we  deny  literary  value  to  the  descriptions  of 
the  millennium  which  ensued  when  Ashur-bani-apal  became 
king,  we  must  deny  it  to  the  millennial  prophecies  of  the  He¬ 
brews,  so  modelled  on  the  Assyrian. 

“Ashur  was  its  god,  plunder  its  morality,  material  pleasure 


THE  “ ASSYRIAN  WOLF” 


653 


its  ideal,  cruelty  and  terror  its  means.”  Ashur  was  indeed 
the  Assyrian  god,  and,  like  the  god  of  every  warrior  people, 
he  led  his  followers  into  battle.  But  he  was  something  more, 
for  in  the  best  Assyrian  days,  the  worship  of  Ashur  approached 
monotheism.  To  the  end,  he  stood  in  solitary  state,  a  rather 
grim,  somewhat  chilly  deity,  but  free  from  most  of  the  ordi¬ 
nary  failings,  just  to  his  friends,  a  good  hater  of  those  who 
opposed  his  people.  The  latent  tendencies  towards  monothe¬ 
ism  were  swamped  by  the  flood  of  religious  customs  from  the 
south;  more  was  the  pity  that  Babylonian  polytheism  pre¬ 
vailed  and  prevented  a  parallel  development  to  what  was  go¬ 
ing  on  in  the  little  states  of  Palestine. 

Nothing  marks  more  the  superiority  of  Assyrian  religion 
over  Babylonian  than  the  respective  treatment  of  Ishtar.  The 
Assyrians  had  the  misfortune  to  settle  in  a  country  where 
sacred  prostitution  was  a  heritage  from  the  age-long,  non- 
Semitic  worship  of  the  mother  goddess.  The  contemporaries 
of  Amos  in  Israel  were  not  able  entirely  to  cast  off  its  evil  in¬ 
fluence,  even  in  the  worship  of  Israel’s  God.  The  contem¬ 
poraries  of  Amos  in  Assyria  were  no  more  successful.  Yet 
compare  the  Ishtar  of  the  Shumerians  and  Babylonians  with 
the  Ishtar  of  Nineveh  or  of  Arbela.  No  longer  is  she  primarily 
a  belated  excuse  for  immorality,  she  is  the  fierce  Arab  matron, 
loving  and  tender  to  her  children,  in  whose  defence  she  will 
fight  with  all  the  fierceness  of  outraged  mother-love.  Ishtar 
no  longer  represents  soft  and  civilised  sin,  but  bold,  hardy, 
natural  instinct  of  life. 

Must  we  call  the  Assyrian  a  wolf?  Not  if  by  that  we  mean 
that  he  was  a  mere  savage  whose  contribution  to  civilisation 
was  negligible.  The  preceding  pages  have  been  perused  in 
vain  if  it  has  not  been  made  amply  clear  that  his  culture  was 
his  own,  however  much  it  may  have  been  based  on  that  of 
others,  and  it  should  be  equally  clear  that  he  passed  on  much 
to  posterity.  If,  after’ all,  we  tend  to  think  first  of  his  adminis¬ 
trative  activities,  we  will  not  have  in  mind  the  wolf  but  per¬ 
haps  the  shepherd-dog,  savage  towards  his  enemies,  never 
permitting  his  sheep  to  stray.  The  shepherd-dog  is  not  loved 


654 


HISTORY  OF  ASSYRIA 


by  his  sheep;  there  be  many,  in  the  Philippines  even,  who  do 
not  agree  with  our  interpretation  of  the  “white  man’s  bur¬ 
den,”  and  the  whole  reaction  of  east  against  west  is  simple 
present-day  comment  on  the  text  at  the  beginning  of  the  sen¬ 
tence. 

Centuries  after  the  warder  of  the  flock  is  dead,  the  impartial 
historian  proves  that  the  sheep  have  gained  from  his  wardship. 
Roman  provincials,  for  example,  hated  the  Eternal  City,  and 
not  without  cause;  with  all  her  faults,  with  her  numberless 
abuses,  it  is  now  universally  recognised  that  the  Roman  Em¬ 
pire  did  a  great  work  for  civilisation.  Nothing  could  be  more 
evil  than  Caesar’s  conquest  of  Gaul,  for  a  million  of  lives  were 
destroyed,  probably  more  than  all  men  put  to  death  by  all 
the  Assyrian  kings;  who  to-day  would  have  the  foundations 
of  France  other  than  Roman? 

In  their  day,  the  Assyrians  were  the  shepherd-dogs  of  civili¬ 
sation.  The  great  majority  of  their  wars  were  wars  of  civilisa¬ 
tion,  either  to  bring  within  the  range  of  cultural  influences 
savage  tribes  or  to  hold  back  these  savage  tribes  from  destroy¬ 
ing  the  thin  line  of  civilisation  in  the  Fertile  Crescent.  They 
failed  tragically,  and  when  they  fell  much  of  the  older  culture 
of  western  Asia  was  irretrievably  lost.  They  failed,  but  they 
had  held  back  the  savages  from  the  Arabian  wastes  or  the 
equally  backward  Indo-Europeans  from  the  northern  grass¬ 
lands  until  they  had  been  at  least  varnished  with  the  elements 
of  the  older  culture. 

Assyria  was  too  small  a  state  to  bear  the  heavy  burden  of 
imperialism.  For  the  moment,  the  Assyrian  won  great  glory 
and  much  financial  return,  but  he  was  bled  white  in  the  process, 
and  his  collapse  was  without  hope  of  recovery. 

What  must  be  the  final  verdict  of  history?  As  his  epitaph 
we  must  write,  not  that  “In  him  is  incarnate,  to  the  highest 
degree,  the  defects  and  vices  of  Asiatic  political  systems,”  but 
the  more  charitable,  more  sympathetic,  more  historically  just, 
“The  Assyrian  was  a  human  being;  being  such,  he  was  very 
much  like  ourselves.  He  was  sometimes  good  and  sometimes 
bad,  he  was  cruel  and  he  was  forgiving,  he  was  wise  and  then 


THE  “ASSYRIAN  WOLF” 


655 


he  blundered,  he  had  capabilities  for  certain  work,  he  had 
none  for  others.  All  in  all  he  was  a  man,  and  a  capable  man; 
he  suffered  the  usual  human  limitations,  he  was  a  child  of  his 
age.  The  empire  he  founded  marked  a  mile-stone  in  the  long 
and  heartbreaking  advance  towards  a  higher  civilisation.  He 
was  the  shepherd-dog  of  civilisation,  and  he  died  at  his  post.” 
Such  an  epitaph  is  sadly  lacking  in  rhetorical  art,  but  it  is  the 
sober  truth  of  history. 


■ 


V 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Names  of  kings  of  important  countries  or  city-states  are  in  small  capitals; 
names  of  countries  or  cities  ruled  are  abbreviated  as  follows:  A  =  Assyria; 
B  =  Babylonia;  D  =  Damascus;  Eg  =  Egypt;  El  =  Elam;  H  =  Hittite; 
I  =  Israel;  J  =  Judah;  M  =  Mitanni;  T  =  Tyre;  U  =  Urartu.  Other  proper 
names  are  thus  indicated:  C  =  city;  G  =  god;  L  =  land;  M  =  mountain; 
R  =  river;  T  =  tribe. 


Aaron,  616 

Abdiliti  (Arvad),  300 
Abdmelcart  (Sidon),  363,  374,  376 
Abel  (C),  201 

Abibaal  (1)  (T),  133;  (2)  (Samsimu- 
runa),  368 

Abiyatha  (Arabs),  427  ff. 

Abeh  (M),  13 
Abraham,  379 
Abydenus,  312 

Accho,  Acco  (C),  204,  300,  375,  395, 
419;  Bay  of,  Fig.  145 
Achish  (Ekron),  368 
Achzib  (C),  300 
Ad  (T),  210 
Adab  (C),  567 

Adad  (G),  32,  66,  77  f.,  122,  168,  229, 
234  f.,  238,  294  f.,  328,  337,  348  f., 
350,  387,  399,  408,  492,  496,  550,  572, 
585,  591,  618;  temple  at  Ashur,  26, 
54,  65,  67,  148,  617;  of  Aleppo,  130, 

174,  618;  of  Anat,  Dur  Bel,  Kakzu, 
546;  of  Kannu,  514;  of  Kumme,  76; 
of  Kurban,  174 

Adad-apal-iddina  (B),  70 
Adad-idri  (D),  135 
Adad-nirari  I  (A),  45,  49,  98,  535, 
562,  617 

Adad-nirari  II  (A),  75,  78 
Adad-nirari  III  (A),  75,  158  ff.,  167, 

175,  182,  250,  270;  Nabu  statue  of, 
Fig.  81 

Adad-shum-iddina  (B),  55 
'  Adad-shum-nasir  (B),  55  f. 
Adad-shum-usur,  372,  381,  390,  396  ff., 
407  ff.,  493,  609,  651 
Adanissi  (G),  406 
Adapa,  386,  415,  585 
Adasi  (A),  30,  206 

Adini  (L),  76,  80,  87,  93  f.,  96,  114,  118 
ff.,  463,  530 


Adinu  (T),  293 

Admetus,  369 

Adonibaal  (Shiana),  135 

Adrammelech,  343;  (G),  210 

iEgistheus,  369 

Agade  (C),  23,  515,  599 

Agamemnon,  369 

Agusi  (L),  124,  137,  144,  159,  162 

Ahab  (I),  131  ff.,  139, 161, 214,  581,  648 

Ahat-abisha,  225 

Ahaz  (J),  195  f.,  201,  212,  302,  379, 
600,  632 

Ahaziah  (I),  139 
Ahaziah  (J),  140  f.,  143 
Ahi  Ashir  (A),  27 
Ahimelech  (Ashdod),  369 
Ahimiti  (Ashdod),  218 
Ahi  Zuhina  (L),  146,  251 
Ahlame  (T),  44,  51,  53,  57,  61,  64,  76, 
91,  188,  389,  395  f.,  432,  451 
Ahmose  (Eg),  35 
Ahsheri  (Mannai),  361,  424  ff. 

Ahtjni  (Adini),  93,  118 
Ahura  Mazda  (G),  244 
Ai  (C),  301 
Aia  (G),  585 
Aijalon  (C),  195 
Airarat  (L),  586 
Akarsallu  (C),  58 
Akatiba  (G),  375 
Akit  Teshub  (Niy),  39  f. 

Akkad  (L),  54,  60,  122,  154,  242,  254, 
345,  347,  351  ff.,  357  f.,  376,  402, 
406,  410,  435,  443,  448,  462,  475,  478, 
488,  589,  640;  (C),  161,  339,  398, 

406  . 

Akkadian  bird,  177;  culture,  504;  lan¬ 
guage,  22,  387,  489,  491,  574  f.,  577 
Akkullanu,  338,  343,  370,  515 
Akrabu,  163 
Alammu  (C),  266,  313 


660 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Alashia  (L),  39 
Alcestis,  369 
Aldebaran,  596 
Aleian  Plain,  534 

Aleppo  (C),  35  f.,  39,  45,  56,  130,  174; 
Fig.  74 

Alexander,  the  Great,  332,  529 
Alexander  Polyhistor,  311 
Allabria  (L),  209,  227,  231 
Alshe  (L),  40,  63,  534;  cf.  Alzi 
A1  Ur  (G),  163 

Alzi  (L),  63,  76, 146,  159,  167;  cf.  Alshe 
Amanus  (M),  125,  202,  320,  329  f., 
370,  441;  Gates,  144 
Amat  (L),  97,  146 

Amaziah  (J),  163,  194;  (priest),  170 
Ambaris  (Tabal),  225 
Amedi  (C),  50,  63,  90,  96,  155  f.,  172, 
259,  262,  419;  Fig.  30 
Amenemhab,  36 
Amenhotep  I  (Eg),  35 
Amenhotep  II  (Eg),  37 
Amenhotep  III  (Eg),  38,  86 
Amenhotep  IV  (Eg),  39;  cf.  Ikhnaton 
Ammash  (Pass),  118 
Amme  Baal  (Amedi),  77,  90 
Ammon,  Ammonites,  136,  171,  194  f., 
218  ff.,  300,  369,  427,  632 
Amon  (G),  211,  380 
Amon  (J),  380,  629 

Amorites,  58,  307;  dynasty  of,  505; 

culture  of,  504;  sea  of,  95 
Amos,  119,  143,  164,  169  ff.,  188,  524, 
590,  622,  653 

Amukkanu  (T),  178,  287,  293,  296,  353 
ff.,  442,  461  ff.,  469,  478 
Amurru  (C),  95,  418;  tombs  in,  Fig.  51 
Amurru  (G),  585 

Amurru  (L),  26,  57,  65,  161,  345  f., 
388,  419,  431,  442,  589 
Amurru-zer-ibni,  480 
Amyitis,  637 
Anammelech  (G),  210 
Anat  (C),  65,  78,  121,  546,  637;  Fig.  4; 

cf.  Hanat 
Anathoth  (C),  301 
Anchiale  (C),  310 
Ancyra  (C),  310 

Andia  (L),  229,  232,  234,  245,  262,  264 
Andromache,  225 
Angora  (C),  310 
Anhite  (Shupria),  115 
Annunitum  (G),  161  f 


Anshar  (G),  584  f.,  613 
Anti-Lebanon  (M),  202 
Antioch  (C),  125  f.;  Fig.  71;  of  Myg- 
donia,  530  f. 

Anti-Taurus  (M),  37,  124,  225 
Antum  (G),  585 

Anu  (G),  349,  407,  477,  526  f.,  575, 
584  f.,  617  f.;  temple  of,  65,  67,  148, 
157,  207;  path  of,  387,  592;  Anu- 
Enlil  series,  590 
Anunnaki  (G),  473 
Anzan  (L),  293 

Aphek  (C),  (1)  134,  162;  (2)  382 
Apil  Addi  (G),  514 

Aplia  (1)  172;  (2)  438;  (3)  445,  455, 
458,  461  f.,  468;  (4)  490 
Apollonius,  35 
Apsu,  415 

Aqaba  (Gulf),  200;  (C),  442 
Aqar-bel-lumur,  469  f. 

Arabah,  169 

Arabia,  1  ff.,  7,  309 

Arabian  horse,  275;  astronomy,  589; 

language,  546,  582 
Arabissus  (C),  37 

Arabs,  135,  140,  189,  194,  199,  209  ff., 
285,  309,  329,  377,  382,  417,  426  ff., 
497,  506,  581;  of  Tai  tribe,  Fig.  2; 
tent,  Fig.  1 ;  at  wells,  Fig.  143 
Arad-aheshu,  441 
Arad  Ea,  397  f. 

Arad  Gula,  397  f.,  409 
Arad  Malik,  338,  343 
Arad  Nabu,  370  f.,  381,  385 
Arad  Nana,  (1)  406,  412  f.;  (2)  461 
Arad  Nannar,  24 
Arad  Ninlil,  337 
Arahtu  (canal),  290,  295,  347 
Arakdi  (C),  89,  251 
Arallu,  home  of  dead,  230 
Aramaeans,  42,  44,  57,  62,  65,  75  f.,  82, 
85,  91,  110,  122,  128,  131,  135,  154, 
171,  175  f.,  178,  184,  196,  209,  283, 
293,  322, 433, 450,  487,  504,  506,  560, 
611,  648 

Aramaic  language,  163,  178,  303,  462, 
514,  538,  581,  608;  dockets,  544,  581; 
scribe,  392,  582;  traders,  532 
Arame  (Agusi),  124,  137,  144 
Arame  (U),  113  ff.,  166 
Ararat  (L),  50,  82,  110  ff.,  182,  343,  586 
Ararat  (M),  586 
Araxes  (R),  155,  160,  166 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


661 


Arbaces,  180 
Arbaia,  460,  462 
Arbailai,  253 

Arbela  (C),  8,  13  f.,  24,  85,  115,  146, 
154,  245,  305,  318,  334,  344,  370,  393, 
402,  424,  438;  Fig.  12;  Ishtar  of,  328, 
339  ff.,  400,  403,  415,  436,  443,  485, 
495,  546,  560,  580,  616 
Argseus  (M),  27,  34;  Figs.  31,  32 
Arghana  Maden  (C),  534 
Argishtihina  (C),  259 
Argishtish  I  (U),  166  ff.,  221,  236,  240 
Argishtish  II  (U),  226,  258  ff.,  312, 
364 

Argishtiuna  (C),  236 
Argives,  226 
Argos  (L),  369 

Arik-den-ilu  (A),  44,  288,  578;  an¬ 
nals  of,  Fig.  33 
Arioch,  28 
Arish  (C),  376 
Arkaitu  (G),  488 

Armenia  (L),  7,  113,  182,  189,  258,  274, 
513;  prehistoric  idol  from,  Fig.  9; 
cf.  Haldia,  Urartu 

Armenian  Mountains,  11,  110,  146,  534 
Armenians,  160 
Arne  (C),  124,  137 
Arnon  (R),  140,  143 
Arnuwandash  I  (H),  45 
Arnuwandash  II  (H),  56 
Aroer  (C),  143,  197 
Arpad  (C),  159,  172  ff.,  182  f.,  207, 
301,  303,  343;  tribute,  607 
Arrapha  (L),  53,  75,  146,  153,  158,  172, 
178,  245,  248  f.,  252  f.,  267,  272,  288, 
431,  445,  460,  468,  635  f. 

Arsacid  Period,  582 
Artatama  (M),  38  ff. 

Arvad  (C),  57,  65,  95,  135,  300,  368, 
375,  378,  389,  417  f.,  506,  533 
Aryans,  38 
Arza-asapa  (C),  376 
Arzashkun  (C),  114 
Arzuhina  (L),  146;  cf.  Urzuhina 
Asa  (J),  133 
Asaph,  302 

Ascalon  (C),  201,  218,  297,  306,  368, 
378,  381  f.,  384,  631 
Asharidu  (1),  248;  (2),  490 
Ashdod  (C),  194,  218,  282,  297,  300, 
305  f.,  309,  369,  631,  635,  649 
Asherah,  214,  632 


Ashima  (G),  210 
Ashipa,  417,  428 
Ashir  (G),  25,  613;  cf.  Ashur 
Ashira  (G),  200 

Ashir-bel-nisheshu  (A),  38,  48 
Ashir-nirari  I  (A),  36,  618 
Ashir-nirari  II  (A),  38 
Ashir-rabi  I  (A),  36 
Ashir-rim-nisheshu  (A),  38 
Ashratu  (G),  546 
Ashtamaku  (C),  137 
Ashtor-Chemosh  (G),  139 
Ashur  (G),  1,  43,  53,  55,  66,  144,  166 
ff.,  177,  198,  206,  227,  233  f.,  270, 
283,  294,  320,  327,  333,  337,  340,  344, 
348,  365,  376,  407,  409,  411,  426,  442, 
459,  491,  526  f.,  545,  608,  612  ff.,  632, 
653;  Creator,  585;  curse  of,  515; 
dreams,  415,  421;  dues  of,  288,  516; 
in  Asia  Minor,  27;  in  Kissuwadna, 
45;  in  Mitanni,  39,  41;  literature, 
580;  oath  by,  77,  174,  347;  oracle, 
358,  363,  389;  sacrifice  to,  75;  temple 
of,  16,  21,  26,  29,  48  f.,  147,  316,  370, 
494;  weapons  of,  311;  winged  figure 
of,  72,  83,  107;  Fig.  50 
Ashur  (C),  1,  8,  13  f.,  24,  41,  98,  108, 
147, 153, 157,  168,  172,  229,  270,  312, 
316  ff.,  327,  337,  340  ff.,  344,  351, 
367,  381,  398,  400,  402  f.,  405  f.,  439, 
505,  515,  522,  531,  538,  543,  550,  555, 
564,  635  f.;  Fig.  11;  city  walls,  21, 
26,  29,  36,  48  f.,  98,  150,  153,  174, 
270,  370,  635  f.;  free  city,  206  f., 
268,  519,  525  f.,  651;  province,  81, 
146,  166,  209,  253,  268,  341,  606 
Ashur-ahi-iddina  (A),  296,  337;  cf. 
Esarhaddon 

Ashur-bani-apal  (A),  386  ff.,  109,  361, 
380,  513,  535,  549, -582,  602,  607,  616 
f.,  627,  631,  634,  647,  649,  651;  art 
of,  499  ff.,  569;  building  of,  494  ff.; 
crown  prince,  370  f.,  386  ff.;  educa¬ 
tion  of,  386,  489,  577;  library,  489, 
580,  618,  622,  652;  literary  remains 
of,  494,  579;  messianic  passages  of, 
391,  399,  610,  618,  652;  scribes  of, 
59;  sculpture  of,  Figs.  149-158,  171 
Ashur-bel-dan,  262 
Ashur-bel-kala  (A),  70  f.,  568 
Ashur-bel-taqqin,  456 
Ashur-daian-apal  (A),  153  ff. 
Ashur-dan  I  (A),  58  f.,  67,  71 


662 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Ashur-dan  II  (A),  75 
Ashur-dan  III  (A),  75,  169  ff. 
Ashur-danin-sharri,  451 
Ashur-dur-pania,  261 
Ashur-etil-ilani  (A),  627  f. 
Ashur-etil-ilani-mukin-apal,  Ashur-etil- 
ilani-ukinni,  296,  404;  cf.  Esarhad- 
don 

Ashur-etil-shame-ersiti-uballitsu,  386 
408 

Ashur-etir,  432 
Ashur-ilu-muballitsu,  338 
Ashur-iqisha  (C),  189 
Ashur-isbat  (C),  121 
Ashur-isqa-danin,  279;  Fig.  93 
Ashuritum  (G),  616 
Ashur-liu,  227  f. 

Ashur-mukin-palea,  371,  386,  389, 
406  f. 

Ashur-nadin-ahe  (A),  39,  42 
Ashur-nadin-apal  (A),  55 
Ashur-nadin-shum  (B),  290  f.,  337 
Ashur-nasir-apal  I  (A),  72  ff. 
Ashur-nasir-apal  II  (A),  81  ff.,  75, 
118, 124, 146, 182, 189,  202, 223,  364, 
370,  506,  521,  558,  586,  648;  army  of, 
145,  604;  art  of,  98  ff.,  568  ff.;  build¬ 
ings  of,  98  ff.,  164,  270,  280,  337,  373; 
language  of,  577;  palace  of,  Figs. 
60,  61;  provinces  of,  516;  religion  of, 
516;  sculptures  of,  Figs.  33-50,  53- 
58,  80;  water  works  of,  Fig.  144; 
worship  of,  103  f.,  600 
Ashur-nirari  III  (A),  56 
Ashur-nirari  IV  (A),  74 
Ashur-nirari  V  (A),  75,  172,  175,  182 
Ashur-rabi  II  (A),  74  f.,  126 
Ashur-resh-ishi  I  (A),  61,  67 
Ashur-resh-ishi  II  (A),  74  f. 
Ashur-risua  (1),  259  f.,  262  ff.,  266  f . ; 
(2),  346 

Ashur-sharrani,  406 
Ashur-sharrat,  403,  502,  559;  Fig.  158 
Ashur-shum-lishir  (A),  59  f. 
Ashur-shum-ushabshi,  338 
Ashur-uballit  I  (A),  41  ff.,  80 
Ashur-uballit  II  (A),  638  ff. 

Asia  Minor,  7,  310,  358,  420,  513;  con¬ 
tact  with,  508;  buildings  of,  86;  Hit- 
tites  in,  34;  horses  of,  276;  neolithic 
implements  from,  Fig.  10;  Semites 
in,  27,  34;  states  of,  124,  162,  189, 
221;  tablet  and  cuneiform  in,  582  f. 


Aspendus  (C),  189 
Assyria,  7  ff. 

Assyrian  language,  490  f.,  505,  577 
Assyrian  Triangle,  13,  511 
Astart  (G),  131,  632 
Astyages  (Medes),  637 
Asuhili,  376 
Atalur  (M),  75,  126 
Ataroth  (C),  139 
Atar-samain  (G),  310,  377,  429 
Athaliah  (J),  140  ff. 

Athens  (C),  531,  564 
Athribis  (C),  416 
Athtar  (G),  377 
Atlantic  Ocean,  7 
Atrahasis,  586 
Atropatene  (L),  363 
Atthis  (G),  222 
Aven  (C),  143 
Avesta,  244 
Avva  (C),  209  ff. 

Aza  (Mannai),  227 
Azag-suga  (G),  585 
Azariah  (J),  186,  194  f.,  212,  514 
Azariah  (North  Judah),  186,  188,  207, 
514 

Azekah  (C),  219 
Azibaal  (Arvad),  418 
Aziel,  87 
Azrikam,  196 
Azur  (C),  302 
Azuri  (Ashdod),  218 

Baal  (T),  368,  375,  378,  382,  384,  506, 
533 

Baal  (G),  133,  139,  141,  143,  166.  191, 
299,  376,  379,  616,  630,  632;  of 
Gezer,  219;  Haman,  185;  of  Harran, 
187;  of  Lebanon,  183,  227;  Melkart, 
132  f.,  141;  Meon,  139;  Semed,  185; 
Shamain,  162;  Baal’s  Head,  139 
Baasha  (Ammon),  136 
Babbar  (G),  600 
Bab  Bitqa  (C),  253  f. 

Babel,  Tower  of,  43;  Fig.  136 
Babite  (C),  88 

Bab  Marrat  (C),  480  ff.,  167 
Bab  Salimeti  (C),  290  f.,  442 
Babylon  (C),  53  f.,  61,  66,  121  f.,  157, 
175  ff.,  209  f.,  215,  286,  402,  405  ff., 
431  ff.,  438  ff.,  476  ff.,  577;  destruc¬ 
tion  of,  295  ff.,  333;  empire  of,  26; 
free  city  of,  526  f.,  473;  “king  of,” 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


663 


181,  357,  405  ff.;  cf.  396;  Mistress  of, 
161;  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  280,  563; 
province  of,  353;  restoration  of,  337, 
347  ff. 

Babylonia,  7,  9  ff.,  33  ff 
Bactria  (L),  159 
Bagbartu  (G),  239  f. 

Bagdadu  (C),  76} 

Bagdatti,  227 

Baghdad  (C),  43,  76,  640;  railroad,  530 
Bag  Teshub,  261  f. 

Bahianu  (1),  76;  (2),  544 
Bahrein  Islands,  256 
Balasi,  389,  590,  592 
Balasu  (1),  180,  353;  (2),  403 
Balata  (C),  321 
Bali  (C),  159 

Balih  (R),  12,  45,  87,  120,  514,  634 
Balihi  (C),  514,  634 
Baltic,  572 

Bamah  (N.  Judah),  124,  184 
Baniti  canal,  356 
Bantishinni  (Amurru),  57 
Barada  (R),  138 
Barak,  201 

Bar  Gush  (Agusi),  162 
Bar  Had  ad  III  (D),  162  ff. 

Barhalza  (L),  177,  275,  343,  399 
Bar  Rekub  (N.  Judah),  187,  207,  538; 
Fig.  91 

Bar  Sur  (N.  Judah),  186 
Bartatua,  360,  424,  637 
Bashan  (L),  143,  171 
Basi,  390  f. 

Bau  (G),  178,  270 
Bau-ahi-iddina  (B),  161 
Bavian  (C),  Figs.  131,  132 
Bazu  (L),  199,  377  f.;  (T)  451 
Bedawi,  3,  12,  429 
Beersheba  (C),  633 
Beilan  Pass,  Fig.  78 
Bel  (G),  of  Assyria,  52,  402,  409,  411, 
545;  of  Babylon  (Marduk),  161,  349, 
352  ff.,  390  f.,  394,  398,  400,  433,  442, 
461,  463,  466,  468,  476  f.,  483,  515, 
527,  616;  seizing  hand  of,  175,  181, 
255,  405 

Bel-apal-iddina,  231 
Bei^bani  (A),  206 
Bel-duri,  253 
Belesys,  180 

Bel-etir  (1),  356,  432  ff.;  (2),  438;  (3), 
458;  (4),  459;  (5),  460;  (6),  490 


Bel  Harran-bel-usur,  168  ff.,  203  f.,  513 
Bel-ibni  (A),  30 
Bel-ibni  (B),  288  ff.,  453 
Bel-ibni,  Chaldsean,  445,  453  ff.,  463 
ff.,  479  ff.,  607,  633 
Bel-iddina  (1),  247  f.;  (2),  264;  (3),  462 
Bel-iqisha,  354  f.,  357,  433  ff. 

Belit  (G),  397 
Bel-liqbi,  428 
Bel-nadin-ahe  (B),  58 
Bel-shar-usur  (1),  383;  (2),  403 
Belshazzar,  383 
Bel-shunu,  456,  466,  477 
Bel-uballit,  432 
Bel-upahhir,  483 
Bel-ushallim,  478  f. 

Bel-ushezib,  338 
Bene  Barak  (C),  302 
Ben  Hadad  I  (D),  131,  133 
Ben  Hadad  II  (D),  133  ff.,  143 
Benjamin  (T),  143,  193 
Berossus,  312 
Beth  Arbel  (C),  193 
Beth  Dagon  (C),  302 
Beth  Eden  (C),  119,  463 
Bethel  (C),  170  f.,  193,  209,  616,  632 
f.;  (G),  375 
Beth  Rehob  (C),  131 
Beth  Shemesh  (C),  163,  195 
Beth  Zeth  (C),  298 
Biaina  (L),  110 
Biashshilim  (Carchemish),  40 
Bikni  (M),  362 
Birat  (C),  469 
Birtai  (T),  427 
Birtu  (C),  253  f.,  344,  635 
Bit  Hamban  (L),  177,  362 
Bit  Humri  (L),  131 
Bit  Iakin  (L),  226;  cf.  Iakin 
Bit  Imbi  (G),  252,  436  f.,  467,  481  f., 
485 

Bit  Kidmuri,  394 
Bit  Kubatti  (C),  288 
Bitlis  (C),  237 
Black  Sea,  225,  536 
Bocchoris  (Eg),  212 
Borsippa  (C),  161, 175  ff.,  178,  355, 440, 
453,  462;  Fig.  136;  free  city,  121, 
255  f.,  349  f.,  526;  Nabu  of,  122,  164, 
406,  471,  476,  515 
Britain,  535 

Brook  of  Egypt,  376,  382 
Bryges  (T),  222 


664 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Bulgarian  Mines,  534;  Fig.  79 
Bulghar  Maden,  534 
Burna  Buriash  I  (B),  36 
Bijrna  Buriash  II  (B),  42 
Bur  Raman  (Amedi),  90 
Bur  Sin  (B),  king  of  Ur,  24  f. 

Bur  Sin  (B),  king  of  Nisin,  600 
Bushtush  (L),  167 

Byblus  (C),  65,  95,  142,  188  f.,  368, 
375;  Fig.  35;  ships  of,  95,  533 

Cabissus  (C),  363 
Calah  (C),  52;  cf.  Kalhu 
Calebites  (T),  200 
Calneh  (C),  188,  301 
Cana  (C),  201 
Canaan,  514,  631 

Cappadocia  (L),  34,  160,  223,  266,  283, 
613;  tablets,  27,  45;  horses,  276,  420 
Carchemish  (C),  36  ff.,  48  f.,  56  f.,  59, 
64,  93  f.,  124,  127  f.,  137,  183,  223  f., 
301,  343,  560;  art  of,  280,  508;  mer¬ 
chant  of,  394;  mana  of,  224,  281,  543; 
tribute  of,  607 

Carmel  (M),  139,  300,  302,  419 
Carthage  (C),  of  Cyprus,  183,  226,  369 
Cassiopeia,  595  f. 

Cassiterides  islands,  535 
Caucasian  languages,  30,  38 
Caucasus  (M),  30,  182,  266 
Cedarenes  (T),  377,  379,  427,  429 
Chalcis  (C),  428 

Chaldseans  (T),  157,  161,  176,  180,  245, 
250,  289,  300,  318,  322,  330,  350  ff., 
357,  451,  453,  458,  479 
Characene  (L),  189 
Chemosh  (G),  131,  139  f.,  632 
Chemosh-gaber  (Edom),  368 
Chemosh-halteh  (Moab),  427 
Chemosh-nadab  (Moab),  300 
Chosrhoes  I  (Persia),  282 
Chytri  (C),  369 

Cilicia  (L),  12,  45,  124  f.,  135,  144  f., 
162,  312,  420,  423;  cf.  Que;  Cilicians, 
225;  Cilician  Gates,  12, 125, 144,  225, 
310,  363,  534 

Cimmerians  (T),  266,  358  ff.,  389,  393, 
395,  415,  421  ff.,  637 
Ciscessus  (C),  189 
Cisus  (C),  369 
Citium  (C),  205,  226 
Cnossus  (C),  31 
Comana  (C),  225,  363;  Fig.  94 


Crete  (L),  31,  58,  86,  306;  Cretans,  143, 
631;  shields,  571;  Figs.  167,  168; 
ships,  533 
Ctesias,  109 
Curium  (C),  369 
Cutha  (C),  209  f . ;  cf.  Kutu 
Cyaxares  (Media),  636 
Cybele  (G),  222 
Cyinda  (C),  363 

Cyprus  (L),  39,  57,  205,  218,  226,  278, 
298  f.,  369  f.,  379,  384;  copper  from, 
183,  535 

Cyrus  I  (Persia),  109,  363 
Cyrus  II  (Persia),  363 

Daban  (C),  122;  (R),  156 
Dagan  (G),  32,  207,  526 
Dahha  (T),  464,  487 
Dahna,  2 

Daian  Ashur,  117  ff.,  144  ff.,  152  ff. 
Daibon  (C),  140 
Daie  (L),  315 

Dakkuru  (T),  122  f.,  175,  180,  253  f., 
287,  352,  354  f.,  440,  442,  470,  628 
Dalta  (Elli),  231,  246,  249 
Damascus  (C),  130  ff.,  142  f.,  159,  161 
ff.,  169,  171,  183,  187,  194,  196  f., 
201  f.,  207  ff.,  252,  301,  429  f 
Damasus,  369 
Damdamusa  (C),  88,  96 
Damkina  (G),  585 
Dan  (T),  302,  616 
Danians,  184 
Darius  I  (Persia),  582 
David  (I),  110,  130  f.,  171,  201,  214, 
217,  297;  City  of,  380 
Dead  Sea,  169,  430 
Debatable  Land,  13,  146,  153 
Deborah,  201 

Deioces  (Media),  209,  243  ff.,  636 
Delphi  (C),  616 
Delta  Kings,  204,  211 
Demavend  (M),  362 
Der  (C),  55,  75,  188,  209,  251  f.,  292, 
393,  431,  436  f.,  461,  466  f.;  free  city, 
349  f.,  527;  Great  God  of,  157,  161 
Deuteronomy,  553 
Dibbara  (G),  169 
Dikanni  (C),  86 

Dilbat  (C),  176,  287,  440,  462,  469 
Dilbat  (G),  345,  372,  377,  397 
Dilbat  (Venus),  377,  592 
Dilmun  (L),  54,  256  f. 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


665 


Diquqina  (C),  344 
Diyala  (R),  245;  Fig.  8 
Dog  River,  298,  384;  Fig.  146 
Dor  (C),  375 
Dudhaliash  (H),  52,  56 
Dungi  (B),  24,  317,  600 
Dunnanu,  435,  438 
Dur  Athara  (C),  252 
Dur  Bel  (C),  361,  546 
Dur  Bel  Harran-bel-usur  (C),  168 
Dur  Iakin  (C),  255  f.;  cf.  Iakin 
Dur  Karpati  (C),  121 
Dur  Kurigalzu  (C),  66 
Dur  Ladina  (C),  255 
Dur  Nabu  (C),  252 
Dur  Papsukal  (C),  156 
Dur  Sharrukin  (C),  209,  241,  258  f., 
263,  268  ff.,  316,  318,  324,  328,  334, 
513,  521,  555,  562,  570;  Fig.  106; 
palace  gate  at,  frontispiece;  restora¬ 
tion,  Fig.  116;  Sin  of,  546;  Babylon¬ 
ian,  465 

Dur  Sin  (C),  463 

Dur  Tukulti-apal-esharra  (C),  177 
Dur  Undasu,  485 
Duuna  (L),  363 
Dygdamis  (Cimmerians),  422 

Ea  (G),  102,  274,  291,  342,  399,  474, 
490;  at  Ashur,  585;  in  Babylon,  441; 
the  creator,  348;  of  Eridu,  493,  576; 
god  of  healing,  613,  620;  Nin-igi- 
azag,  320;  Nudimmut,  165;  god  of 
wisdom,  410 
Eanna,  347,  460,  486 
Eannatum  (B),  567 
Ea-zer-iqisha,  478 
Ebabbara,  441 
Ebih  (M),  156 
Ebir-nari  (L),  376,  381 
Ecbatana  (C),  243,  245 
Echmiazin,  364 
Eden  (L),  643 
Edessa  (C),  93;  Fig.  65 
Edial  (C),  369 

Edom  (L),  140,  161,  163,  171,  194  f., 
300,  368,  427 
E  Dungi,  600 
Egal-edin,  495 
E-gashan-kalama,  16 
Egypt  (L),  7  f.,  12,  31,  33  ff.,  56,  62, 
65,  97,  110,  130,  171,  211  ff.,  302,- 
374  ff.,  389,  395,  415  ff.,  431,  634  ff.; 


alphabet,  573,  580;  animals  of,  142; 
annals,  578;  blue  glaze,  104;  Brook 
of,  376,  382;  Fig.  141;  column,  565; 
cylinder,  104;  horses,  276;  Israel,  re¬ 
lations  with,  192,  204  ff.,  215  ff.,  283, 
378  ff. ;  plague,  164;  scribe,  507 ;  ships, 
533 

E-harsaggal-kurkurra,  16 
Ehulhul,  495 

Ekallate  (C),  66,  268,  295 
Ekarzagina,  441 

Ekron  (C),  219,  283,  297,  302,  305,  368, 
631 

Ekur,  440 
El  (G),  185 

Elam  (L),  31,  44,  122,  283,  345,  347, 
349,  358,  387,  395,  415,  431  ff.,  498; 
kings  of,  28,  43,  55,  58,  251,  284,  291, 
350  f.,  355,  357;  culture  of,  14,  504; 
in  eclipse,  589;  writing,  573 
Elath  (C),  194  f. 

Elephantine  (C),  582 
Eliakim,  217  f.,  302,  304 
Elijah,  133  f.,  139,  141,  166,  298 
Elisha,  133,  138,  141 
Elkanah,  196 
Elkosh  (C),  641;  Fig.  175 
Elli  (L),  117,  161,  231,  246,  249,  267, 
275,  288,  358,  389 
Eltekeh  (C),  302,  374 
Emashmash,  72,  317,  472,  487,  496, 
545;  cf.  Emishmish 
Emelamanna,  495 
Emishmish,  16,  28 
Emineshu,  477 
Emmanuel,  196,  212 
Eniel  (Hamath),  189 
Enki  (G),  575  f. 

Enkidu,  206 

Enlil  (G),  43, 165,  423,  493,  575,  598  ff.; 
in  Assyria,  56,  229,  328,  429;  identi¬ 
fied  with  Marduk,  405,  576,  613;  road 
of,  345,  592,  594;  temple  to,  36 
Enlil-bani,  456 
Enlil-kudur-usur  (A),  56 
Enlil-kudur-usur,  61 
Enlil-nadin-shum  (B),  53,  55 
Enlil-nasir  I  (A),  31 
Enlil-nasir  II  (A),  36 
Enlil-nirari  (A),  43 
Enlil-rabi  (A),  70 
Enzag  (G),  256 
Enzite  (L),  114 


666 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Enzu  (G),  600 
Eparna,  362 
Ephah  (C),  200 
Ephraim  (T),  192  f.,  196  f. 

Eresh-kigal  (G),  23,  26,  412 
Eriba  Ad  ad  (A),  41,  48,  61 
Eriba  Adad,  56 
Eriba  Adad  II  (A),  71 
Eriba  Mardtjk  (B),  175,  250 
Eridu  (C),  9,  447  f.,  564;  Ea  god  of, 
493,  621;  free  city,  527;  early  litera¬ 
ture,  575  f. 

Erimenash,  424 
Erishum  I  (A),  26,  67 
Erishum  II  (A),  28 
Erishum  III  (A),  31 
Erishum,  27 
Erzerum  (C),  364 

Esagila,  53,  165,  338,  347,  350,  405, 
441  f.,  515,  526 

Esarhaddon  (A),  337  ff.,  30,  202,  206, 
296,  401,  403,  405,  419,  423  f.,  431, 
461,  511,  515,  518,  521,  533  ff.,  592, 
616,  627,  637,  649,  651;  armoury,  Fig. 
137;  brick  of,  Fig.  134;  building,  368 
ff.,  495,  527;  cylinder  of,  Fig.  169; 
library,  490;  relief  at  Dog  River, 
Fig.  146;  sphinx  of,  Fig.  139 
Esdraelon,  139 
Eshallit,  477 
Esharra,  495,  545,  585 
Eshitlam,  406,  494 
Eshmun  (G),  376 
Eshpai,  267 
Eteandrus,  369 
Eteru,  432  f.,  476 
Ethbaal  I  (T),  95,  131 
Ethbaal  II  (T),  300 
Ethiopia  (L),  211,  215,  302,  383,  417, 
419,  642;  Ethiopian,  130,  389;  horses 
from,  276,  507 
Etiush  (L),  155 

Euphrates,  8  ff.,  12,  94,  291;  Fig.  29 
Eusebius,  311 
Ezekiel,  625,  643  f. 

Ezida,  122,  176,  347,  441,  470,  490,  526; 
Fig.  136;  in  Kalhu,  165, 628;  in  Nine¬ 
veh,  496 

Ezra,  Book  of,  487 

Fertile  Crescent,  7 
Fravartish  (Media),  636 


Gabbar  (N.  Judah),  124,  184  f. 
Gabbarud  (Hattina),  130,  163 
Gabbu-ana  Ashur,  262,  274 
Gad  (T),  139,  143 
Gaga  (G),  585 
Gahul,  291,  356,  432 
Galilee  (L),  201 
Gallim  (C),  301 

Gambulu  (T),  252,  293,  354  f.,  433  ff., 
438,  518 

Gananate  (C),  122,  167 
Gandash  (B),  30 
Ganish  (C),  27 

Gath  (C),  162,  194,  212,  218,  305 

Gau  Gamela  (C),  332 

Gaza  (C),  201,  207,  211,  306,  631 

Geba  (C),  301 

Gebim  (C),  301 

Gezer  (C),  219,  582 

Giammu,  120 

Gibeah  (C),  192,  301 

Gihon,  380 

Gilead  (L),  143,  171,  193,  201 
Gilgamesh,  206,  276,  333,  586;  frontis¬ 
piece,  Fig.  112 
Giluhipa,  39 

Gilzan  (L),  85,  114  f.,  118 
Gindibu,  135 
Girsu  (C),  598 
Gizilbunda  (L),  231 
Gizil  Sin  (A),  30 
Gokcha  Lake,  221 
Gomel  (R),  328,  332 
Gordium  (C),  223 
Gordius  (Phrygia),  222 
Greeks,  335,  369,  384,  611;  alphabet, 
582;  of  Cyprus,  535;  influence,  508; 
cf.  Ionians 
Gudea  (B),  567 

Gula  (G),  375,  389,  397,  407,  492,  583 
Gurasimmu  (T),  445  ff.,  450  f.,  456, 
460,  464,  479 
Gur  Baal,  194 

Gurgum  (L),  124,  130,  182,  187,  225 
Guriana  (C),  266 
Guti  (T),  237,  423,  442 
Guzana  (C),  76, 159, 164,  172,  204,  209, 
344,  517 

Gyges  (Lydia),  417,  420  ff. 

Habini  (Til  Abni),  119  f. 

Habiri  (T),  58 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


667 


Habur  (R),  12,  64,  76,  80,  85  ff.,  91, 
121,  159,  164,  209 
Hadad  (G),  163,  185  f.,  618 
Hadadezer  (Zobah),  131 
Hadadezer  (Damascus),  135  ff. 
Hadrach  (C),  162 
Haiappai  (T),  200,  210 
Haifa  (C),  300,  419 
Halah  (L),  44,  209,  277 
Haldia  (G),  238  ff.,  242,  265,  508 
Haldia,  Haldians,  31,  82,  96,  110  ff., 
144  f.,  155,  166,  172  ff.,  182  ff.,  221, 
258  ff.,  312,  361,  364  f.,  367  f.,  393, 
419,  423  f.,  638,  649;  gods,  315;  hy¬ 
draulic  works,  330;  influence,  508; 
metallurgy,  508,  534;  monuments, 
117;  Fig.  83;  cf.  Urartu 
Halebieh  (C),  531 

Hallutush  In  Shushinaic  II  (El), 
291  f.,  486 

Halulina,  Haluli  (C),  293,  350  f.,  427 
Halupe  (L),  86,  92 
Halzi  (C),  328 
Halzi  Atbar  (C),  344 
Hamath  (C),  130,  135,  162,  169,  183, 
188  f.,  207,  209,  228,  245,  301,  303, 
428;  Figs.  75,  76 
Hamban  (L),  248 

Hammurabi  (B),  28,  317,  491,  576  ff., 
589,  594;  laws  of,  441,  532,  550,  575, 
600 

Hamranu  (T),  255 

Hana,  Hanat  (C),  26,  28,  53,  78,  cf. 
Anat 

Hanaton  (C),  201 
Hanes  (C),  216 
Hani  (G),  585 

Hani  Galbat  (L),  48  f.,  76,  342 
Hantishilish  (H),  36  f. 

Hanun  (Gaza),  201,  207  f. 

Harhar  (C),  161,  246,  288,  358 
Haridi  (C),  92 

Harran  (C),  38,  41,  48,  64  f.,  202,  400, 
638  ff.;  Bel  of,  168;  census,  511  ff., 
517  f.,  619;  free  city,  207,  526  f., 
•  province,  146  f.,  605;  Sin  of,  173,  187, 
269,  380,  408,  415,  495,  514  f.,  546, 
619 

Harri  (T),  38,  40  f.,  45 
Harri  canal,  450,  460,  464 
Harsagkalama  (C),  55 
Hatra  (C),  168 
Hatshepsut  (Eg),  35 


Hatte  (C),  34,  223,  225 
Hattina  (L),  94,  124,  129  f.,  144,  162  f., 
183 

Hattushash  (C),  34 
Hattushilish  I  (H),  35 
Hattushilish  II  (H),  39 
Hattushilish  III  (H),  49  ff. 

Hauran  (L),  139,  427 
Hayya  (N.  Judah),  124,  129,  184 
Hazael  (Damascus),  138,  140,  142  f., 
161  f. 

Hazael  (Arabs),  310,  377 
Hazazu  (C),  126,  159 
Hazor  (C),  201 

Hazrek  (C),  162,  169,  172,  188 
Hebrews,  58,  62,  110,  171,  209,  277, 
297,  507,  551;  cf.  Israel,  Judah 
Hebron  (C),  633 
Hegra  (C),  211 
Hellanicus,  109 
Hellenistic  Period,  582 
Heraclidse,  422 
Hereus,  369 
Herod,  132 
Herodotus,  243,  309 
Hezekiah  (J),  183,  212,  214  f.,  283, 
297  ff.,  378,  380,  580,  630;  Fig.  126 
Hezron  (C),  427 

Hidalu  (T),  438,  444,  459,  466,  482,  485 
Hilaku  (T),  125,  225,  310,  322,  420,  516 
Hilkiah  (1),  217,  302;  (2),  631 
Hilmu  (T),  435,  444,  479,  481 
Hindanu  (T),  76,  87,  121, 154,  446,  467, 
484,  634 
Hinnom,  632 

Hiram  I  (T),  131,  133,  171 
Hiram  II  (T),  183 
Hirimme  (T),  288,  515 
Hit  (C),  78 

Hittites,  27,  31,  34  ff.,  56  f.,  59,  62,  65, 
82,  124,  160,  162,  166,  209,  222,  224; 
annals,  578;  bit  hilani,  278,  319,  323, 
329,  335,  497,  508,  565;  inscriptions, 
130,  534;  Fig.  97;  iron,  use  of,  535; 
land,  Syria,  161,  202,  278,  374;  sculp¬ 
tures,  119;  Fig.  84,  96,  97 
Homer,  534 
Hosea,  191  ff. 

Hosiiea  (I),  201 
Hrihor  (Eg),  65 

Hubushkia  (L),  85,  112,  118,  156,  159, 
237,  264,  361,  368 
Hubushna  (L),  363 


668 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Hulli  (Tabal),  202,  225 
Humbaba,  206 
Humbanappa,  435 

Humbandara  (1),  251,  486;  (2),  436, 
438 

Humbanhaltash  I  (El),  294,  351  f. 
Humbanhaltash  II  (El),  351  f.,  355, 
357,  435 

Humbanhaltash  III  (El),  479  ff. 
Humbanigash  I  (El),  251,  486 
Humbanigash  II  (El),  435,  437  f.,  444, 
446,  449,  455,  458 
Humbanigash  III  (El),  484 
Humbanimena  (El),  293  f. 
Humbankidinni,  438 
Humbanshibar,  466,  479,  482 
Humbushti,  478 
Humhummu  (G),  161 
Hurikna  (L),  189 
Hurpa-tila  (El),  43 
Husur  (R),  328,  330 
Huwakhshatara  (Media),  636 
Hyksos,  31  ff. 

Ia,  Iatnana  (L),  226 
Iabroda  (C),  427 
Iadi  (L),  378 

I akin  (L),  226,  250,  254  ff.,  287,  450, 
461,  477,  634 
Iakinu,  123,  180,  250 
Ialman  (M),  58,  75,  146,  156;  Fig.  11 
Iamani  (Ashdod),  218 
Iamutbal  (L),  431 
Ianzu  (1),  117;  (2),  237 
Iashian  (T),  479,  484 
Iasubigallai  (T),  288 
Iatbur  (L),  252 
Iaubidi  (Hamath),  207  f. 

Iaudi  (L),  184  ff.,  514 
Ibashshi-ilu,  394 
Ibi  Sin  (B),  27 
Ibleam  (C),  191 
Iconium  (C),  225 
Id  (C),  78,  121 
Idalium  (C),  369 
Idin  Dagan  (B),  600 
Igigi  (G),  473 
Igisigsig  (G),  328 
Igurkapkapu  (A),  28 
Ijon  (C),  201 

Ikhnaton  (Eg),  42,  165  f.,  201;  cf. 

Amenhotep  IV 
Ikkaru,  412 


Ikkilu  (Arvad),  378,  389,  417  f. 
Illubru  (C),  310  f. 

Ilu-shuma  (A),  26 
Imgur  Bel,  255,  349,  441 
Iminbi  (G),  344 
India,  159,  532 

Indo-European  language,  35;  tribes,  82, 
362 

Ingira  (C),  310 

Intapigash  (El),  463,  466,  479,  482 
Ionia,  422 

Ionians,  218  ff.,  225  f.,  290,  312,  508 
Ionic,  temple,  278;  Fig.  115 
Iranian  Plateau,  177,  243  f. 

Iranians,  38,  156,  178,  231,  266,  508 
Iranzu  (Mannai),  227,  231 
Irhuleni  (Hamath),  130,  135  ff.,  162 
Iron  (C),  201 
Irqanata  (C),  135 
Isaac,  379 

Isaiah,  183, 188, 195  ff.,  212, 214, 282  f., 
297  ff.,  378,  649 
Isana  (L),  41,  81,  343 
Isauria  (L),  38 
ISHBI-URRA  (B),  26 
Ishdi  Nabu,  394 
Ishhupri  (C),  383 
Ishkallu  (Tabal),  419  f. 

Ishmael,  429 
Ishme  Dagan  I  (A),  30 
Ishme  Dagan  II  (A),  31 
Ishme  Dagan  III  (A),  31,  36 
Ishpabare  (Elli),  249,  288 
Ishpuinish  (U),  155,  159,  166 
Ishtar  (G),  23,  168,  173  ff.,  183,  346, 
376,  379,  421,  426,  583,  653;  of  Ar- 
bela,  328,  339  ff.,  400,  403,  415,  436, 
443,  485,  495,  546,  560,  580,  616;  of 
Ashur,  temple  at,  17  ff.,  26,  54,  147, 
616,  620;  the  Assyrian,  545,  616;  of 
Babylon,  gate  at,  255;  in  Elam,  357; 
figures  of,  Figs.  25-28;  heads  (coins), 
321,  537;  among  Medes,  178;  of 
Nineveh,  72,  318,  320,  496,  616; 
temple  at,  28,  41,  52,  487;  oracle, 
358,  403,  436  f.,  443,  580;  of  Suhi, 
78;  of  Uruk,  460;  star,  592;  statue 
of,  70,  568. 

Ishtar-duri,  245,  248  f.,  252,  264 
Ishtar-shum-eresh,  372,  397,  402,  592 
Ishtar-shum-iqisha,  259 
Ishtunda  (C),  189 
Isis  (G),  95 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


669 


Israel,  110,  124,  131  ff.,  161  f.,  166,  169 
ff.,  191  ff.,  212,  514 
Itamra  (Saba),  211,  310 
Ititi  (A),  16 

Itti  (Alabria),  209,  227  f. 

Itti  Marduk-balatu,  70 
Itti  Shamash-balatu,  417 
Ituai  (T),  167, 253  f.,  260, 262, 264, 395, 
518 

Ivriz  (C),  Figs.  96,  99 
Izalla  (L),  88,  93,  638 
Izirtu  (C),  426 

Jabin,  201 
Jabneh  (C),  194 
Jacob,  184,  196,  213 
Jahaz  (C),  139 
Jamnia  (C),  302 
Janoah  (C),  201 
Jehoahaz  (I),  161  f. 

Jehoahaz  (J),  195;  cf.  Ahaz 
Jehoash  (I),  162  f. 

Jehoash  (J),  143,  162  f. 

Jehoiada,  133,  143 
Jehonadab,  141 
Jehoram  (I),  138  ff. 

Jehoram  (J),  139  f. 

Jehoshaphat  (J),  137,  139 
Jehosheba,  143 

Jehovah,  133,  612;  cf.  Yahweh 
Jehu  (I),  139  ff.,  151,  161,  191  f.;  Fig. 
77 

Jeremiah,  214,  250,  379  ff.,  557,  630  ff. 
Jeroboam  I  (I),  193 
Jeroboam  II  (I),  169,  581 
Jerusalem  (C),  140,  163,  194  ff.,  213, 
301  ff.,  379,  630  ff.;  Fig.  107 
Jews,  546 

Jezebel,  131,  133,  141 
Jezreel  (C),  141,  192 
Joah,  302  f. 

Joash,  132 
Job,  575 

John  the  Baptist,  324 
Jonah,  tomb  of,  370;  Fig.  137 
Joppa  (C),  297,  302 
Jordan  (R),  143,  194 
Josephus,  586 
Joshua  (1),  201;  (2),  632 
Josiah  (J),  629  ff.,  639 
Jotapata  (C),  201 
Jotham  (J),  194  f. 

Juba,  312 


Judah,  110,  131  ff.,  161  f.,  170,  186, 
194  f.,  212  ff.,  283,  297,  300  ff.,  368, 
378  ff.,  382,  470,  629  ff. 

Judah,  Northern,  182  ff.,  207,  384,  399, 
594,  560,  618;  coins,  538;  Fig.  72;  cf. 
Samal 

Judah  (Iadi),  378 

Jupiter,  339,  348,  387  f.,  591  f. 

Kabtia,  402  f.,  469 
Kadashman  Enlil  (B),  50  ff. 
Kadashman  Harbe  I  (B),  42  f. 
Kadashman  Harbe  II  (B),  54 
Kadashman  Turgu  (B),  45,  50 
Kadesh  (C),  of  Syria,  35,  45;  of  Naph- 
tali,  201 

Kakzu  (C),  81,  146,  343,  402;  Adad  of, 
546 

Kalamu  (N.  Judah),  184,  581 
Kalhu  (C),  52,  95,  99  ff.,  150,  157, 
164  f.,  174,  202  f.,  226,  229,  258,  270, 
281,  283,  288,  318,  328,  341,  346,  358, 
370  ff.,  392,  394  f.,  397  f.,  402,  433  f., 
496,  516,  562,  627  f.;  province  of,  81, 
146,  272;  tribute  of,  607;  Urta  of, 
546,  549 

Kammanu  (L),  225 
Kandalanu  (B),  477 
Kandaules  (Lydia),  420  ff. 

Kannu  (L),  514 
Kaprabi  (C),  93;  Fig.  65 
Karabail  (Saba),  310 
Kara  Indash  I  (B),  38 
Kara  Indash  II  (B),  42 
Karalla  (L),  227 
Kar  Ashur  (C),  177 
Kar  Ashur-ahi-iddina  (C)  (1),  368;  (2), 
374 

Kar-bel-matati,  416 
Kar  Duniash  (L),  54,  65,  639 
Kar  Ishtar  (C),  45 
Kar  Nergal  (C),  462 
Kar  Shamash  (C),  253 
Kar  Sharrukin  (C),  246,  288 
Kar  Shulmanasharidu  (C),  119,  530 
Kar  Tukulti  Urta,  55 
Kashiari  (M),  48,  63,  76,  85,  88,  90,  96; 
castle  in,  Fig.  52;  gate  to,  Fig.  39; 
man  of,  Fig.  42;  village  of,  Fig.  40 
Kashshites,  30, 34,  55/58, 117, 168, 178, 
512;  culture,  504 
Kashta  (Ethiopia),  211 
Kashtaritu  (Cimmerian),  359 


670 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Kashtiliash  III  (B),  53 

Kasku  (C),  189 

Kedar  (T),  377,  379,  427,  429 

Kelishin  Pass,  155 

Kengi  (L),  178 

Kenites  (T),  141 

Kerioth  (C),  171 

Khian  (Eg),  31 

Khorsabad  (C),  282 

Kibaba,  249 

Kibshuna  (C),  64 

Kidmuri,  Queen  of,  394 

Kidron,  632 

Kikia  (A),  21 

Kinipa  (M),  88 

Kir  (L),  197 

Kirbit  (L),  431 

Kirhareseth  (C),  140 

Kirhi  (L),  75  f.,  85,  96,  118,  189,  239 

Kirruri  (L),  77,  85,  97,  115,  146,  245 

Kish  (C),  177,  284  f.,  463 

Kishar  (G),  584 

Kishesim  (C),  246 

Kisir  Ashur  (1),  259;  (2),  464 

Kissik  (C),  448,  457  f.;  free  city,  527 

Kissuwadna  (L),  45 

Kitin  Hutrutash  (El),  55 

Kitrusi  (C),  369 

Kudur  (1),  353  ff.;  (2),  435;  (3),  445, 
454  f.,  458  f.,  461,  488;  (4),  461 
Kudur  Enlil  (B),  53 
Kullith  (C),  Fig.  40 
Kunulua  (C),  95,  144,  183 
Kurban  (C),  146,  174,  262,  560 
Kurdish,  313,  586 
Kurds,  332;  Fig.  41 
Kuri  (C),  369 
Kurigalzu  III  (B),  43 
Kushtashpi,  182  f. 

Kutir  Nahhunte  I  (El),  58,  486 
Kutir  Nahhunte  II  (El),  292  f. 
Kutmuh  (L),  44,  50,  53,  63,  75,  81,  85, 
R7  90  97  146  1  ^7 

Kutu  (Cutha)  (C),  161,  177,  284,  355, 
425,  469,  490;  Nergal  of,  122,  406, 
612 

Lachish  (C),  194,  306  f.,  335;  Fig.  127 
Lagash  (C),  567,  598 
Lahiru  (L),  75,  178,  292,  460,  481,  484; 
(C),  347 

Lahmu  (G),  495 
Laishah  (C),  301 


Lala  (1)  (Melidia),  117,  125,  144;  (2) 
(Arabs),  378,  451 
Laodicea  (C),  95 
Laqe  (T),  76,  79,  121 
Larak  (C),  180 
Larsa  (C),  349;  free  city,  527 
Latarak  (G),  407 

Lebanon  (M),  28,  138,  289,  297,  302, 
308,  375;  Figs.  122, 125;  Baal  of,  227; 
cedars  of,  163,  202,  274,  304,  369, 
441,  497,  643;  Fig.  124 
Ledra  (C),  369 
Libnah  (C),  140,  308 
Libo  (C),  169 

Libya  (L),  417,  642;  desert,  7;  dynasty, 
110,  130 
Lidir  (C),  369 

Lubarna  (Hattina),  94,  144 
Lubdu  (L),  75,  424 
Lugal-dalu  (B),  567 
Lugal  Maradda  (G),  470 
Luli  (T),  205,  298,  300 
Lullai  (A),  30 
Lullu  (L),  77 
Lulu  (L),  242 

Lulume  (L),  6R  75,  188,  229,  245  ff. 
Lycaonia  (L),  125 
Lycians,  422 

Lydia  (L),  266,  417,  420  ff.,  508;  alpha¬ 
bet,  582;  money  of,  537;  tombs  of 
kings,  Fig.  148 

Maacah  (L),  201 
Maaseiah,  196 
Madanu  (C),  635 
Madmenah  (C),  301 
Madyas,  363,  637 
Magan  (L),  382 
Maganisi  (C),  544 
Mahalliba  (C),  300 

Main  (L),  194,  200,  211,  430;  cf.  Mi- 
nseans 

Malikram  (Edom),  300 
Mallus  (C),  144,  530,  534 
Manasseh  (J),  368,  378,  380,  384,  586, 
601,  629,  632,  647 
Manasseh  (T),  143 
Mandseans,  546 
Mane  (C),  634 
Manishtusu  (B),  511 
Mannai  (T),  118,  156,  159,  167,  182, 
227,  231  ff.,  245,  262  ff.,  322,  358  f., 
395,  424  ff.,  518,  634 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


671 


Mannu-ki  Ashur  (1),  267;  (2),  487 
Mannu-ki  Ninua,  246 
Mansuate  (C),  161;  tribute,  607 
Marad  (C),  456,  470 
Mar-biti  (G),  161 
Mardi,  398 
Mardin  (C),  Fig.  39 
Marduk,  468  f. 

Marduk  (G),  59,  121,  168,  176,  181, 
255,  347,  366,  382,  386,  394,  410,  415, 
441  f.,  459,  471,  474,  476  f.,  490, 
515  f.,  612,  633;  in  Ashur,  53,  295, 
340,  405  f.;  temple  in,  43,  48;  in  As¬ 
syria,  545,  580,  617  f.;  creator,  584  f.; 
in  Hanat,  26,  28,  78;  as  star,  Jupiter, 
592;  in  Kalhu,  102;  in  Nineveh,  270; 
oracle  of,  423;  in  literature,  492,  576; 
as  god  of  healing,  613,  621 
Marduk-apal-iddina  I  (B),  56 
Marduk-apal-iddina  II  (B),  167,  175, 
250 


Marduk-apal-iddina  III  (B),  cf. 

Merodach  Baladan  III 
Marduk-apal-u«ttt5  /CJ”hi),  120 
Marduk-bala1? 
Marduk-balatsu-iU28>.A73'  5 
Marduic-bel-usate  I  (B),  121  f. 
Marduk-bel-usate  II  (B),  167 
Marduk-bel-ushezib,  284 
Marduk-eresh,  431 
Marduk-mudammiq,  117 
Marduk-nadin-ahe  (B),  66,  70,  295, 
546 


Marduk-rimani,  154 
Marduk-shapik-zer  (B),  59 
Marduk-shapiic-zer-mati  (B),  70 
Marduk-shar-usur  (1),  249;  (2),  459, 
463,  466 

Marduk-shum-ibni,  434,  438,  483 
Marduk-shum-iddina,  254 
Marduk-shum-usur,  380,  415 
Marduk-zakir-shum  I  (B),  121  f., 
154  f. 

Marduk-zaicir-shum  II  (B),  284 
Mari  (C),  25  f.,  53,  79,  121 
Mari  (D),  163 

Mar  Ishtar  (1),  259;  (2), '475,  590,  592 
Marqasi  (C),  225,  343 
Marrat  (C),  167,  480  f. 

Mars,  345  f.,  389,  397,  592 
Marsimani  (T),  210 
Marub  (C),  375 
Marubishtu  (C),  249 


Marya,  38 
Mash  (L),  427 
Masis  (M),  586 

Mataktu  (C),  293,  437  f.,  466,  480  ff., 
485  f. 

Mati-ilu  (Arpad),  172  ff.,  182  f. 
Mattan,  143 

Mattanbaal  I  (Arvad),  135 
Mattanbaal  II  (Arvad),  368 
Matti,  223,  225 
Mattiuaza  (M),  40  ff. 

Mazaka  (C),  63,  419 
Mazamua  (L),  89,  97,  117,  146,  172, 
177  f.,  245,  247,  445 
Mazda  (G),  231,  244 
Medeba  (C),  132,  139 
Medes,  110,  117,  145,  156,  159,  161, 
178, 180, 209,  231  ff.,  243  ff.,  276,  283, 
359  ff.,  389,  395,  426,  442,  462,  516, 
635  ff.;  Fig.  103 

Megiddo  (C),  35,  141,  639;  tribute  of, 
607 

Mehri  (L),  75 
Melaa^  ^  1  (C),  64 
Melech  (6),  379,  632 
Melechasaph  (Byblus),  368 
Melidia  (C),  117,  124,  144,  160,  166, 
182,  225,  419;  relief  from,  Fig.  97 
Meli-shipak  I  (B),  56 
Melitene  (C),  124,  162;  cf.  Melidia 
Meluhha  (L),  54,  417,  442 
Memphis  (C),  193,  383  f.,  416 
Men  (G),  222 

Menahem  (I),  189,  191,  193 
Menahem  (Samsimuruna),  300 
Menahem,  544 
Menuahina  (C),  221 
Menuash  (U),  155,  159  f.,  166,  221 
Mercury,  592 

Merodach  Baladan  I  (B),  56 
Merodach  Baladan  II  (B),  167,  175, 
250 

Merodach  Baladan  III  (B),  180, 
215  ff.,  221,  250  ff.,  284  f.,  288  ff., 
293  f.,  299,  324,  350,  352,  438,  449  f., 
453,  457,  634;  garden  of,  523 
Merom  (C),  201 

Mesha  (Moab),  132,  139  f.,  143,  581 

Mesopotamia,  7,  513 

Metatti,  227,  232 

Metten,  202 

Me  Turnat  (C),  156 

Meunim,  194 


672 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Micah,  212  ff.,  378 
Michmash  (C),  301 

Midas  (Phrygia),  221  ff.,  422;  Midas 
City,  223;  Fig.  95 
Midian  (L),  200 
Migron,  301 
Milcom  (G),  632 
Milgishu  (G),  376 
Milkia  (C),  495 
Minseans,  194,  200,  211,  430 
Minoan,  131,  583 
Mishma  (T),  429 
Misuri  (T),  332 
Mita  (Phrygia),  221  f. 

Mitanni  (L),  36  ff.,  48  f.,  62,  64,  87, 
495  f.,  534,  560,  605;  language,  31 
Mitinti  (Ascalon),  201 
Mitinti  (Ashdod),  220,  300,  306 
Mizpah  (C),  192 

Moab  (L),  132,  139  f.,  171,  218  ff.,  300, 
368,  427,  581,  632 
Mongolian,  35 
Moresheth  (C),  212 
Moses,  206,  380,  600,  631,  6?£ 

Mosul  (C),  29,  318,  328,  376,  586 
Mugallu,  358,  419  f. 

Muhammad,  2,  210 
Munnabittum,  432,  591 
Murshilish  I  (H),  35 
Murshilish  II  (H),  45 
Musasir  (C),  118,  221,  237  ff.,  245,  263, 
265  f.,  312,  562,  571,  580 
Mushezib  Marduk  (B),  292  f. 
Mushezib  Marduk  (1),  353;  (2),  484 
Mushki  (T),  63,  80,  85,  221  f. 

Musri  (L),  41,  64,  333;  (M),  270,  330; 

for  Egypt,  208 
Musuri  (Moab),  368 
Mutakkil  Nusku  (A),  61 
Mutallu  (Gurgum),  124,  225  ff. 
Mutallu  (Qummuh),  263 
Mutarris  Ashur,  155 
Mutkinu  (C),  65,  75 
Muturna  (C),  261 
Muwattallish  (H),  45,  49 
Mycenae  (C),  57 

Nabataeans,  211,  427  ff. 

Nabopolassar  (B),  479,  487,  633  ff. 
Naboth,  141 

Nabu  (G),  168,  353  ff.,  385,  390  f.,  398, 
400  ff.,  411  f.,  415,  461,  468,  479,  494, 
585,  618;  of  Arbela,  436;  of  Borsippa, 


121  f.,  161,  164  ff.,  176,  255, 406,  441, 
470  ff.,  476  f.,  515  f.;  curse  of,  550; 
of  Dur  Sharrukin,  209,  277 ;  figure  of, 
Fig.  81;  of  Kalhu,  164  ff.,  371  f.,  394, 
628;  monotheism  of,  617  ff.;  as  Mer¬ 
cury,  592;  of  Nineveh,  270,  342,  496; 
patron  of  learning,  340,  386,  491  f., 
580 

Nabu-ahe-eriba,  386  ff.,  407,  477,  489, 
592 


Nabu-ahe-iddina,  466 
Nabu-ahi-iddina,  248 
Nabu-apal-iddina  (B),  91,  121  ff. 
Nabu-apal-iddina,  432 
Nabu-apal-usur  (B),  633;  cf.  Nabo¬ 
polassar 

Nabu-bel-shumate  (1),  255;  (2),  444, 
450  f.,  453  ff.,  463  f.,  466,  469,  479  ff., 
482  ff. 


Nabu-bel-ukin,  246  f.,  288 
Nabu-bel-usur,  440 
Nabu-daiani  (A),  56 
Nabu-damiq,  436,  438 
Nabu-dur-usuT*  'P  0<37*  (2),  435 

NafeitO’.61’  I5’  188 ' 


Nabu-hamatua,  248,  253 
Nabu-kudurri-usur,  453  f. 

Nabu-li,  262,  266 
Nabu-mukin-zer  I  (B),  167 
Nabu-mukin-zer  II  (B),  178  ff. 
Nabu-nadin-ahe,  393 
Nabu-nadin-shum,  390  f. 
Nabu-nadin-zer  (B),  178 
Nabu-naid  (B),  640 
Nabu-naid,  438 
Nabu-nasir  (B),  176  ff. 

Nabu-nasir  (1),  394;  (2),  461 
Nabu-pashir,  269 
Nabu-qata-sabat,  444,  484 
Nabu-rihtu-usur  (A),  627 
Nabu-rihtu-usur,  400 
Nabu-rimanni,  403 
Nabu-salla,  428 
Nabu-shallimshunu,  229 
Nabu-shar-usur  (1),  343;  (2),  355,  389, 
400,  424  f.,  434 
Nabu-shezib,  478 
Nabu-shezibanni,  416  f. 
Nabu-shum-eresh,  434,  438 
Nabu-shum-iddina,  371,  381,  394 
Nabu-shum-imbi,  176 
Nabu-shum-ishkun  I  (B),  75 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


673 


Nabu-shum-ishkun  II  (B),  175  ff.,  250 
Nabu-shum-ishkun,  294 
Nabu-shum-lishir,  427,  469 
Nabu-shum-ukin  (B),  178 
Nabu-usalli  (1),  259;  (2),  351 
Nabu-ushabshi,  435,  445  f.,  455,  458  ff., 
478  f. 

Nabu-ushallim  (1),  353  f.,  357,  438;  (2), 
438;  (3),  449  f.;  (4),  463 
Nabu-ushezib,  445  f. 

Nabu-zer-ibni,  252 
Nabu-zer-iddina,  445 
Nabu-zer-kitti-lishir,  350  f. 

Nagitu  (L),  290;  (C),  440,  453 
Naharina  (L),  35  f. 

Nahum,  417,  641  ff.;  tomb  of,  Fig.  175 
Naid  Marduk  (1),  351  f.,  449  f. ;  (2),  463 
Nairi  (L),  53  f.,  76  f.,  82,  88,  112,  117, 
143,  146,  155  f.,  188  f.,  236  f.,  241 
Nal  (M),  189 

Namri  (L),  117,  161,  174,  231 
Namtar  (G),  407 

Nana  (G),  347,  397,  406,  444,  460  f., 
486,  488,  515 
Nannacus,  225 

Nannar  (G),  25,  328,  473,  598 

Napata  (C),  211 

Naphtali  (T),  201 

Naqia,  337;  cf.  Zakutu 

Naram  Sin  (B),  31,  567,  599 

Nasibina  (C),  76,  80,  146,  531,  561,  638 

Natan,  451,  464,  466 

Nazi  Bugash  (B),  42 

Nazi  Maruttash  (B),  45 

Nebo  (C),  139 

Nebuchadnezzar  I  (B),  59  ff. 
Nebuchadnezzar  II  (B),  88,  123,  280, 
334,  350,  497,  524,  563,  565,  636 
Nebuchadnezzar,  453 
Necho  I  (Eg),  384,  416,  647 
Necho  II  (Eg),  638  f. 

Nefud,  2 

Negeb  (L),  195,  216 

Negub,  water  works  at,  Fig.  144 

Nerab'  (C),  514 

Nergal  (G),  229,  386,  414,  457,  470;  in 
Kutu,  122,  161,  210,  406,  612;  as 
Mars,  592;  in  Nineveh,  522;  pest  god, 
171,  387,  435;  in  Tarbisu,  328;  of 
underworld,  23,  613 
Nergal-bel-usur,  426 
Nergal-eresh,  159 
Nergal-etir,  249,  275 


Nergal-ilia,  158  ff. 

Nergal-sharrani,  372 
Nergal-ushezib  (B),  289  ff.,  356 
Nesubenebded  (Eg),  65 
Nibe  (Elli),  249 
Nibhaz  (G),  210 
Nikur  (C),  177,  247 
Nile  (R),  1,  7  f.,  164, 171,  211,  299,  383, 
534,  613 

Nimid  Laguda  (C),  527 
Nimit  Ishtar  (C),  41,  81,  121,  146 
Nimitti  Bel,  255,  349,  441 
Nimrud  (M),  160 
Nina  (C),  317 

Nineveh  (C),  8, 13  f.,  147, 153,  290,  310, 
338,  341  f.,  344,  348,  358,  373,  398, 
402,  419,  430,  438,  514,  522,  564, 
636  f.,  640;  Fig.  13;  armoury,  329, 
368  ff.;  Fig.  137;  Ashur-bani-apal  in, 
496  ff . ;  divisions  of,  607 ;  Esarhaddon 
in,  368  ff.;  god  in,  545;  Ishtar  of,  41, 
400,  616;  temple  to,  16,  28,  487;  cf. 
Emashmash;  library  in,  490,  496; 
Marduk  and  Nabu  temple  in,  270; 
Nabu  temple  in,  165;  province  of,  44, 
52,  81,  146;  Sennacherib  in,  282, 
317  ff.;  tribute  of,  607;  walls  of,  Fig. 
138 

Ningal  (G),  400,  585 
Ningal-(shum-)iddina,  351,  394,  445, 
515 

Nin-igi-azag  (G),  320,  335,  348 
Ninlil  (G),  229,  328,  344  f.,  394,  418, 
472,  491,  585,  616 
Ninyas,  159 

Nippur  (C),  55,  58,  256,  291  f.,  354  ff., 
402,  435,  440,  447,  455  f.,  459,  461, 
465  f.,  478,  487,  494,  627  f.;  Enlil  of, 
493,  575  f.,  598;  free  city,  61,  350,  527 
Nipur  (M),  159,  248,  313 
Niriba  (C),  166 
Nishtun  (C),  85 
Nisibis  (C),  530 
Nisin  (C),  26,  55,  58,  600 
Nisir  (M),  88,  586 
Nissaean  horses,  275  f. 

Niy  (C),  35,  39 
No  Ammon  (C),  417,  642 
Nob  (C),  301 
Noph  (C),  211 
Nudimmut  (G),  165 
Nuhashshe  (C),  39 
Nur  Adad  (1),  76;  (2),  88 


674 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Nur-ekalli-umu,  431 
Nur-ili  (A),  31 

Nusku  (G),  380,  400,  475,  495  f.,  585 

Oannes  (G),  575 

Omri  (I),  131  ff.,  139,  213,  297 

Onesagaras,  369 

Ophel  (M),  195,  380;  Fig.  107 

Opis  (C),  66,  253,  290 

Orion,  387,  592,  596 

Orontes  (R),  95,  136,  162;  Figs.  71,  76 

Osiris  (G),  95,  613 

Osnappar,  487 ;  cf.  Ashur-bani-apal 

Osoricon  I  (Eg),  130 

Osorkon  II  (Eg),  130,  134,  137 

Osorkon  III  (Eg),  211 


Pactolus  (R),  Fig.  147 
Paddiri  (C),  424,  426 
Padi  (Ekron),  283,  302 
Pae  (El),  487 
Pakrur  (Eg),  384 

Palestine,  1,  7  f.,  33,  58,  62,  161,  207, 
297,  375,  524 
Palmyra,  65,  531 

Panammu  I  (N.  Judah),  185  f.,  617 
Panammu  II  (N.  Judah),  186  f.,  197, 
538 

Pan  Nabu-lamur,  403 
Pan  Ninua  (A),  31 
Pappa  (Paphos)  (C),  369 
Parsua  (L),  117  f.,  155  f.,  159,  167,  177 
231  f.,  245  f.,  248,  293,  444,  459 
Parza  Nishtun  (C),  96,  264 
Pateischories  (T),  363 
Pehlevi,  546 
Pekah  (I),  193  f.,  201 
Pekahiah  (I),  193 
Pelusium  (C),  309 
Persia,  7,  14,  244,  282,  535,  636 
Persian  bird,  177;  period,  582 
Persian  Gulf,  7,  9,  54,  256,  290  f.,  350, 
463,  479  f.,  532,  575,  596 
Pharaoh,  208,  216 
Philistine  plain,  12,  130,  305,  508 
Philistines,  58,  62,  140,  161  f.,  194  ff., 
201,  297,  302,  306,  322,  631;  Fig.  123 
Phoenicia,  95,  97,  283,  528 
Phoenician  alphabet,  581;  altar,  Fig.  38; 
language,  163;  purple,  560;  shields, 
571;  Figs.  167, 168;  temple,  Figs.  35, 
38 


Phoenicians,  35,  58,  125,  226,  276,  290, 
297,  506  f.,  533  ff.,  611 
Phraortes,  243 

Phraortes  (Media),  243,  636 
Phrygia,  221  ff.,  225,  266,  422,  508 
Phrygian  alphabet,  582 
Piankhi  (Eg),  211  f. 

Pihirim  (Hilaku),  125 
Pillatu  (T),  444,  479  ff. 

Pir  Amurru,  458,  462  f. 

Pisiris  (Carchemish),  183,  224 
Pitru  (C),  75 
Pleiades,  345  f.,  596 
Protothyes  (Scyths),  363,  637 
Psammetichus  I  (Eg),  416  f.,  419, 
421  f.,  634  ff. 

Pudiel  (Ammon),  300,  369 
Pul,  Pulu  (B),  181 
Pulu,  476  f. 

Pulu  (C),  261,  267 
Punt  (L),  417,  642 

Puqudu  (T),  178,  355,  435,  442,  445  ff., 
457,  459  ff.,  464,  478,  484 
Puzur  Ashir  I  (A),  26 
Puzur  Ashir  II  (A),  27 
Puzur  Ashir  III  (A),  31 
Puzur  Ashir  IV  (A),  36,  48 
Pythagoras,  369 
Pytheas,  369 

Qablinu  (C),  634  f. 

Qaqqadanu,  263,  267 
Qarel,  185 

Qarqara  (C),  135  ff.,  143,  162,  207,  648 
Qartihadasti  (C),  183,  369 
Qatni  (L),  76,  121 

Que  (L),  125,  135,  143  ff.,  183,  188, 
225  f.,  310,  322,  420,  534;  tribute  of, 
607 

Queen  of  Heaven,  379 
Qumani  (L),  64,  75 

Qummuh  (L),  96,  182,  189,  226,  256, 
258,  263 

Qurhi  (L),  53,  63 

Qute  (T),  44,  50,  52,  54,  61 

Rabbah  (C),  171 
Rahilu  (C),  637 
Ramah  (C),  192,  301 
Ramoth  Gilead  (C),  137  ff. 

Ramses  II  (Eg),  45,  49,  51,  65,  130; 
Fig.  146 

Ramses  III  (Eg),  56 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


675 


Raphia,  Rapihi  (C),  207,  382 
Rapiqu  (C),  53,  65 

Rasappa  (C),  121,  146  f.,  159,  164,  172, 
202,  343,  638 

Rashi  (T),  252,  445,  459,  464,  485 
Re  (G),  612  f. 

Reehab,  141 

Red  Sea,  7,  194,  200 

Rehob,  136 

Rehoboth  Ir  (C),  376 

Rekub  (G),  185 

Rekub-el  (G),  185,  187 

Remaliah,  197 

Reshef  (G),  185 

Retennu  (L),  137 

Rezon  I  (D),  131 

Rezon  II  (D),  183,  194  ff.,  201 

Rhodians,  226 

Ribit  Nina  (C),  376 

Rimani  Adad,  541 

Rimanni-ilu,  462 

Rimsharma  (Aleppo),  45 

Rim  Sin  (B),  28 

Rimush  (A),  30 

Rimusi  (C),  146,  277,  344,  547 

Rimutu  (1),  435;  (2),  465 

Royal  Canal,  355 

Rua  (T),  252,  460,  465 

Rugguliti  (C),  638 

Rukibti  (Ascalon),  201,  218,  306 

Rusahina  (C),  221 

Rusash  I  (U),  221  ff.,  236,  240,  245, 
258,  535 

Rusash  II  (U),  239,  364,  367,  423 
Rusash  III  (U),  239,  424,  436 

Saalli  (T),  287 

Saba  (L),  189,  200,  211,  310,  379 

Sagbita  (C),  156 

Saggal-apal-ekur  I  (A),  56 

Saggal-apal-ekur  II  (A),  70 

Sahar  (G),  163 

Sahara,  7 

Sahend  (M),  234 

Sahiru  (C),  634 

Sais  (C),  211,  416 

Salamis  (C),  369 

Salih,  210 

Samal  (L),  124,  129,  162,  187,  197, 
207  f.;  Figs.  72,  85-87;  cf.  Judah, 
Northern 

Samaria  (C),  132  f.,  141,  162,  170,  189, 


192  ff.,  196,  204  f.,  207  ff.,  212  f.,  297, 
301,  303,  309,  487,  633 
Sammuramat  (A),  158  ff.,  401,  617 
Samsi  (Arabs),  199,  211,  378 
Samsimuruna  (C),  300,  369 
Samsu-iluna  (B),  28 
Samuel,  380 
Sandakshatru,  423 
Sanda-sarme  (Hilaku),  420 
Sanduarri,  363,  374,  376 
Sangara  (Carchemish),  94,  124,  128  f. 
Sangibutu  (L),  231,  235  f.,  249 
Sapalulme  (Hattina),  124 
Saparda  (T),  360  f. 

Sapea  (C),  179  f.,  435 
Sardanapallus  (A),  109;  cf.  Ashur- 
bani-apal 

Sardis  (C),  422;  Figs.  147,  148 
Sardurish  I  (U),  117  ff.,  144,  155,  166 
SardurishII  (U),  174, 182  ff.,  190, 221, 
240;  inscription  of,  Fig.  83 
Sardurish  III  (U),  424 
Sargon  (B),  23,  26  f.,  34,  206,  270,  588 
Sargon  (A),  204  ff.,  154,  167,  283,  288, 
297,  309  f.,  312,  315,  364,  369,  374, 
463,  508,  515,  518  f.,  534  f.,  571,  579, 
595,  610,  636,  648,  651  f.;  army  of, 
268,  603;  art  of,  280  ff.,  568,  570; 
bricks  of,  Figs.  92,  93,  109,  119,  120; 
bull  of,  Fig.  140;  at  Dur  Sharrukin, 
270  ff.,  316,  373,  511,  513,  536,  570; 
at  Harran,  495,  526;  library  of,  270; 
at  Nineveh,  318;  palace  of,  Fig.  116; 
sculptures  of,  Figs.  101-104, 110-115, 
117,  118;  vessels  of,  561  f. 
Sarpanitum  (G),  28,  354,  397,  433 
Sarugi,  Sarug  (C),  514;  lion  from,  119, 
Fig.  44 

Sasi  (Hattina),  144 
Sasi,  400  f. 

Saturn,  592 
Saul  (I),  301 
Saul  (N.  Judah),  184 
Saushshatar  (M),  38 
Sazabe  (C),  127 
Scythians,  360  f.,  424,  637 
Sealands,  123,  167,  250,  254,  350,  352, 
433,  445,  447  ff.,  454  ff.,  480  f.,  484, 
633  f. 

Sebaste  (C),  132 
Seir  (M),  140,  427 
Sela  (C),  163 


676 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Seleucia  (C),  of  Syria,  126;  of  Babylo¬ 
nia,  531 

Semiramis  (A),  158  ff.,  221,  237,  401 
Semites,  1  ff.,  21,  504 
Senir  (M),  138 

Sennacherib  (A),  283  ff.,  120,  183, 
206,  337  f.,  341,  344,  346,  350  f.,  363, 
374,  377,  395,  400  f.,  415,  453,  456, 
463,  475,  481,  506,  515,  527,  534,  547, 
558,  580, 595;  armoury,  319, 368;  Fig. 
137;  art,  568,  570;  bulls  of,  Fig.  132; 
character,  334  ff.,  492,  601,  610; 
crown  prince,  258  ff.;  innovations, 
507,  521,  523,  537,  560,  605;  inscrip¬ 
tions  of,  Fig.  133;  in  Nineveh,  317  ff., 
282,  496;  prism  of,  Fig.  126;  religion 
of,  585;  sculptures  of,  Figs.  122,  123, 
127,  128;  walls  of,  Fig.  138 
Sepharvaim  (C),  209  f.,  303 
Sert  (C),  237 
Serug,  119,  514 
Sethos  (Eg),  309 
Seti  I  (Eg),  45 
Severus  (Rome),  530 
Sha  Ashur-dubbu,  259  f.,  274 
Shabai  (A),  30 

Shabaica  (Eg),  212,  302,  309,  416 
Shabataka  (Eg),  374 
Shadudu  (Suhi),  91  f.,  107 
Shagarakti  Shuriash  (B),  53 
Shakin-shum,  432 
Shala  (G),  66,  79,  295,  585 
Shalim-ahum  (A),  26 
Shallum  (I),  191 

Shalmaneser  I  (A),  49,  87,  99,  514, 
529 

Shalmaneser  II  (A),  74 
Shalmaneser  III  (A),  110  ff.,  75,  158, 
163,  166, 180, 182,  211,  244,  250,  364, 
505  f.,  514  f.,  526,  530,  534,  606,  648; 
art  of,  151,  568,  570  f.;  at  Ashur,  147 
ff.,  174;  as  crown  prince,  89,  99;  in¬ 
scription  of,  Fig.  62;  gate  relief  of, 
Figs.  68,  69;  obelisk  of,  Fig.  77;  at 
Harran,  495;  religion  of,  617  ff. 
Shalmaneser  IV  (A),  75,  166  ff.,  203 
Shalmaneser  V  (A),  188, 204  ff.,  207  f., 
223,  250,  282,  375,  463,  477,  506,  519, 
526,  533,  571,  651 
Shalmanu-nunu-shar-ilani,  86 
Shamash  (G),  168  f.,  172,  199,  232,  326, 
328,  337,  340,  342,  345,  348  f.,  351  f., 
355,  387,  398,  406,  408  ff.,  415,  428, 


442,  472  ff.,  492,  545,  585,  612; 
Ashur,  temple  in,  30,  36,  618;  heads 
(coins),  537;  inquiries  of,  357,  359  ff., 
377,  385,  388,  395  f.,  405,  411  f.,  419 
f.,  423,  434,  443,  446,  459,  468,  587  f., 
606,  613,  616,  649;  lawgiver,  600;  in 
Samal,  163,  185 
Shamash-balatsu-iqbi,  442 
Shamash-bel-usur,  252 
Shamash-daninanni,  478 
Shamash-ibni,  351  ff.,  628 
Shamash-iddina,  453 
Shamash-meta-uballit,  386,  401,  408 
Shamash-mudammiq  (B),  75 
Shamash-resh-usur  (Suhi),  78 
Shamash-shum-ukin  (B),  353,  371, 
386,  396  ff.,  401,  405  ff.,  412,  417, 
428,  440  ff.,  493  f.,  496,  634,  638 
Shamash-upahhir,  245 
Shamshi  Ad  ad  I  (A),  28,  32,  52,  67 
Shamshi  Ad  ad  II  (A),  31 
Shamshi  Ad  ad  III  (A),  31 
Shamshi  Ad  ad  IV  (A),  71 
Shamshi  Adad  V  (A),  75,  154  ff.,  617 
Shamshi-ilu,  166  ff. 

Sha  Nabu-shu,  361,  381,  384,  389,  419 

Sharezer,  343 

Shargaz  (G),  585 

Sharma  Adad  I  (A),  30 

Sharma  Adad  II  (A),  31 

Sharon,  plain,  302 

Sharru-emuranni  (1),  245  ff.;  (2),  435 
Sharrukin  I  (A),  27 
Sharrukin  II,  cf.  Sargon  (A) 
Sharru-ltjdari  (Ascalon),  306 
Sharru-ludari  (Eg),  384,  416 
Shar-shame-irsiti-ballitsu,  371  f. 
Sharuhen  (C),  35 
Sharur  (G),  327,  585 
Shattena  (C),  447  f. 

Shear-jashub,  195  f. 

Sheba  (1),  133;  (2),  201 
Sheba  (L),  189,  379 
Shebna,  217  f.,  302,  304 
Shepe  Ashur,  465 
Shemesh  (G),  632 
Sheol,  643 
Sher  (G),  142 
Sherua  (G),  585 
Sherua-eterat,  371,  386,  404 
Shiana  (C),  135,  188 
Shibaniba  (C),  146,  328 
Shibhinish  (L),  146 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


677 


Shihor,  299 
Shiloah,  197 
Shimalia  (G),  161 
Shishak  I  (Eg),  110,  130 
Shishak  III  (Eg),  142 
Shittim  (C),  192 
Shubari  (L),  41,  48,  53  f. 

Shulmanu  (G),  585 
Shulmu  Bel,  266 

Shuma  (1),  464;  (2),  466;  (3),  490 
Shumai,  338,  393 
Shuma-ilani,  541 

Shumer  (L),  15,  54,  178,  347,  357,  406 
Shumerian  art,  567;  culture,  504;  lan¬ 
guage,  15,  22,  335,  387,  393,  442,  489, 
491,  575,  577;  pictographs,  573;  reli¬ 
gion,  612,  620 
Shum-iddina,  356  f.,  456 
Shum-ukin  (1),  461;  (2),  490 
Shuna  Ashshura  (Kissuwadna),  45 
Shuppiluliuma  (H),  39  ff.,  45,  124 
Shupria  (L),  49,  88,  115,  152,  260  f.,  364 
ff.,  389,  396,  423 
Shuruppak  (C),  21,  586 
Shushinak  (G),  485 
Shutarna  (M),  40  ff. 

Shutruk  Nahhunte  I  (El),  58 
Shutruk  Nahhunte  II  (El),  249, 
251  f.,  284,  291,  486 
Shuzub  (1),  293,  456;  (2),  432 
Si  (G),  619;  cf.  Sin 
Sibitti  (G),  585 
Sibitti  Baal  (Byblus),  189 
Sibu  (Eg),  204,  207,  382 
Sidon  (C),  65,  95,  125,  139,  142,  161, 
183,  204,  258,  290,  298  f.,  363,  374, 
395,  463,  632;  altar  at,  Fig.  38;  gar¬ 
dens  of,  Fig.  37 
Sil  Bel  (Gaza),  306 
Sil  Bel  (Ascalon),  368 
Sillai,  431  ff.,  450 
Silli  Ashur,  309 
Simeon  (T),  382 
Simesi  (L),  111 

Simirra  (C),  65,  188,  204,  207  f.,  418 
Sin  (G),  168,  328,  340,  342,  345,  373, 
389,  397,  407,  410,  448,  457  f.,  473, 
585,  589;  Ashur,  temple  at,  30,  36, 
618;  at  Harran,  173,  187,  269,  380, 
408,  415,  495  f.,  513,  515,  546,  619, 
638;  at  Dur  Sharrukin,  546 
Sinai,  1,  8,  33,  140,  581 
Sin-balatsu-iqbi,  394,  446,  450 


Sin-bel-aheshu,  446 

Sin-dini-epush,  465 

Singara  (C),  Fig.  73 

Singara  (L),  41,  522 

Singara  (M),  12,  77,  121,  159,  511,  522 

Sin-gashid  (B),  29,  442 

Sin-iddina,  466 

Sin-iddin-apal,  386 

Sinope  (C),  225 

Sin-shar-ibni,  627 

SlN-SHAR-ISHKUN  (A),  628  ff. 

Sin-shar-usur,  446  ff. 

Sin-shum-lishir,  627 
Sin-tabni-usur,  445  ff.,  449,  451 
Sipan  (M),  160 

Sippar  (C),  54,  66,  78,  177,  255  f.,  291, 
355,  394,  440,  469,  628;  free  city,  61, 
349  f.,  527;  flood  story  at,  586;  Sha- 
mash  of,  406,  612;  temple  of,  441 
Sirara  (M),  320,  369,  497 
Siris  (G),  473 
Sirius,  595  f. 

Sirqu  (C),  121 
Sis  (C),  363 
Sisera,  201 
So  (Eg),  204 
Socoh  (C),  195 
Soli  (C),  226,  369 

Solomon  (I),  110  f.,  171,  189,  214,  308, 
632 

St.  Paul,  530,  553 

Subarti  (L),  389,  589 

Subarum  (L),  640 

Subnat  (R),  88 

Succoth-benoth  (G),  210 

Suhi  (L),  65,  78  ff.,  91,  120  f.,  634,  637 

Sumbi  (L),  229 

Sumu-abu  (B),  26 

Sumuan  (L),  310,  329 

Sumu-la-ilu  (B),  26 

Surappu  (R),  177 

Susa  (C),  9,  14,  252,  437,  444,  466,  484 

ff. 

Sute  (T),  42,  44,  57,  284,  518,  527 
Syria,  7  f. 

Syrians,  546 

Tabal  (L),  125,  143  f.,  189,  202,  225, 
239,  266  f.,  311,  419,  432,  456,  605 
Tabeel,  196 
Tabite  (C),  44,  76 
Tabor  (M),  192 
Tabriz  (C),  234 


G78 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Tab-shar  Ashur,  253,  269,  271  f.,'  277  f. 
Tab-sil  Ashur,  259 

Tab-sil-esharra,  209,  253,  255,  263  f., 
268,  274,  277 
Tabua,  377 
Tadmar,  Tadmor,  65 
Taduhipa,  39 

Taharka  (Eg),  302,  374,  381,  383  f., 
416  f. 

Tai,  Arab  tribe,  Fig.  2 
Takelet  II  (Eg),  142 
Takib-sharri  (Nuhashshe),  39 
Takuwa  (Niy),  39 
Tamesu,  Tamassus,  (C),  369 
Tammaritu  I  (El),  435,  438 
Tammaritu  II  (El),  458  ff.,  463  ff., 
481  f.,  486  f.,  601 
Tammaritu,  437 
Tammuz  (G),  131,  379,  600 
Tamudi  (T),  210  f. 

Tanutamon  (Eg),  416 
Tarbisu  (C),  328,  346,  370,  395,  494, 
636 

Targibatu  (T),  449  f.,  464 
Tarhulara  (Gurgum),  182  f.,  225 
Tarhunazi  (Kammanu),  225 
Tarshish,  Tarsus,  144,  299,  534;  Fig.  79 
Tarsus  (C),  144,  225,  299  f.,  310,  312, 
530,  534 

Tartahu,  star,  397 
Tartak  (G),  210 

Tartara  (R),  12,  77,  121;  Fig.  73 
Tashmetum  (G),  371  f.,  385,  403,  441, 
453,  476  f.,  491 
Tashmetum-sharrat,  337 
Taurus  (M),  Figs.  98,  99 
Te  (C),  627 
Tebiltu  (R),  318  f. 

Tefnakhte  (Eg),  211  f. 

Teheran  (C),  362 

Teishbash  (G),  221 

Teispes,  363 

Tekrit  (C),  635 

Tela  (C),  88 

Telhunu,  310 

Telibunush  (H),  38 

Tema,  Teme  (C),  200,  310,  329 

Temanna  (L),  76 

Tep  Humban  (El),  435  ff.,  444,  466, 
482,  496,  503 
Tep  Humban,  449 
Teshub  (G),  Figs.  84,  97 
Teushpa,  363 


Thamud  (T),  210  f. 

Thebes  (C),  65,  211,  383,  416  f. 

Thekel  (T),  306 
Thrace  (L),  222 
Thutmose  I  (Eg),  35 
Thutmose  ill  (Eg),  35  ff.,  48,  64  f.,  86, 
130,  422 

Thutmose  IV  (Eg),  38 
Tiamat,  102,  316,  423,  576,  584  f. 
Tiglath  Pileser  I  (A),  62  ff.,  75  f.,  78, 
81  f.,  85,  88,  114,  124,  175,  182,  189, 
223,  295,  315,  364,  567,  578;  art  of, 
568;  administration  of,  66  f.,  516; 
building  of,  67  f.,  148,  565;  inscrip¬ 
tion  of,  Fig.  63 
Tiglath  Pileser  II  (A),  75 
Tiglath  Pileser  III  (A),  174  ff.,  207, 
221,  224  ff.,  245,  250  f.,  347,  353, 
374  f.,  378,  431,  463,  477,  506,  513, 
534,  601,  617;  administration  of,  516, 
526,  606;  art  of,  280;  building  of, 
373;  writing  of,  270,  578,  583 
Tigris,  9  ff.;  Figs.  11,  30 
Tigris  tunnel,  114,  116;  Figs.  62-64 
Til  Abni  (L),  119  f.,  154,  514 
Til  Barsip  (C),  119,  290,  530,  638 
Til  Bashere  (C),  126 
Til  Garimmu  (C),  225,  311,-518 
Til  Kamri  (C),  176 
Tille  (C),  90,  146,  157,  259,  343 
Timnah  (C),  195,  302 
Timur  (C),  144 
Tirzah  (C),  191 
Tishpak  (G),  585 
Tissaphernes,  363 
Tiyari  (M),  111 
Togormah  (L),  37,  225 
Toi  (Hamath),  130 
Topheth,  379,  632 
Treres  (T),  422 
Tripolis  (C),  95 
Troad  (L),  225 
Troy  (C),  222 
Tugdame,  423 
Tuhamme,  189 
Tukulti  Ashur-asbat  (C),  89 
Tukulti  Urta  I  (A),  52  ff.,  59,  71,  76, 
98,  148,  515  f.,  556 

Tukulti  Urta  II  (A),  75,  77  ff.,  87  f., 
145,  167 
Tulliz  (C),  437 
Tupliash  (L),  117,  252 
Turbessel  (C),  127 


/ 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


679 


Turkish,  15,  573 
Turnat  (R),  156 

Turushpa  (C),  234,  259  f.,  262  f.,  cf. 
Tushpash 

Tushhan  (C),  88,  97,  116,  146,  259  f., 
274 

Tushpash  (C),  160,  166,  189,  234,  236, 
259;  cf.  Turushpa 
Tushratta  (M),  39  ff. 

Tyana  (C),  35,  189,  223,  225,  363 
Tyre  (C),  95,  125,  131,  139,  141  f.,  161, 
171,  183,  202,  204  f.,  207  f.,  274,  283, 
290,  297  ff.,  322,  368,  375,  382,  384; 
506,  528,  533;  early,  Fig.  36;  tribute 
of,  Fig.  69 

Uaush  (M),  227,  233 

Ubaru,  350,  356,  433 

Ubase  (C),  29,  48,  272 

Uesi  (C),  236  f.,  263  ff.,  361,  364 

Uishdish  (L),  227,  232,  234 

Ukkai  (T),  263  ff.,  266,  315 

Ukku  (C),  315 

Uknu  (R),  177,  252,  515  f. 

Ulai  (R),  291,  437  f.,  480 
Ulhu  (C),  235 
Ulluba  (L),  118,  188  f. 

Ullusunu  (Mannai),  227,  231  f.,  234, 
248 

Ululai  (B),  200,  463,  478 
Ulurush  (R),  189 
Umhuluma,  482  f. 

Umman  Manda,  Medes,  423,  637,  640 
Undasu,  444,  485 
Unqi  (L),  124,  127,  183 
Upahhir  Bel,  259,  262 
Uperi  (Dilmun),  256 
Uppume  (C),  115,  366  f.,  423 
Ur  (C),  177,  445,  447  f.,  591,.  598;  dy¬ 
nasty  of,  24,  27  ff.,  34,  58,  492,  505, 
575,  600,  606;  free  city,  527 
Urartu  (L),  50,  75,  82,  90,  96,  111,  166, 
189,  221,  236,  332,  343,  368,  638;  ark 
in,  586;  cf.  Haldia 
Urashtu  (L),  638 
Urbillum,  Arbela  (C),  24 
Urfa  (C),  86;  cf.  Edessa 
Urhi  Teshub,  49 
Uriah,  197  f. 

Urkittu  (G),  472 
Urmelech  (Byblus),  300 
Urra  (G),  328 

Urta  (G),  229,  340,  346,  386,  414,  478, 


492,  550,  617;  of  Kalhu,  99,  104,  546, 
549;  of  wall,  585 
Urta-ahi-iddina,  354  f.,  456 
Urtaku  (El),  357,  416,  433,  435,  455, 
459 

Urtaku,  437 

Urta-nadin-shum  (B),  59 
Urta-tukulti  Ashur  (A),  59  ff. 
Uruadri  (L),  50 

Uruk  (C),  29,  178,  292,  347,  351,  368, 
381,  402,  435,  440,  442,  444  f.,  450, 
454  f.,  458  ff.,  461  ff.,  466,  486,  488, 
628,  634;  Anu  of,  575,  617;  free  city, 
527 

Urume,  160 

Urumia,  lake,  155,  159,  166  f.,  182,  227, 
234,  263,  293,  364,  535,  634 
Urzana  (Musasir),  237  ff.,  265,  267, 
312 

Urzuhina  (C),  251,  267,  344;  cf.  Arzu- 
hina 

Usanata  (C),  135,  188 
Ushhitti,  189 
Ushpia  (A),  21 
Ushqaia  (C),  234  f. 

Ushu  (C),  300,  418 
Usur-amatsu  (G),  178,  406,  488 
Utta  (T),  451 
Uzziah  (J),  194 

Van  (C),  118,  160,  189,  221,  239 
Van,  lake,  53,  64,  113,  160,  166,  221, 
236,  259 

Venus,  377,  388,  407,  592 

Wadi  Haifa,  422 
Wahab  (Arabs),  377,  426 
Washshukkani  (C),  38,  48 
Wenamon,  65,  583 

Yahweh,  133  f.,  139,  141,  143,  164, 
170  ff.,  186,  191  f.,  195  ff.,  207,  209, 
212  ff.,  299,  301  ff.,  308,  379,  514, 
600,  612  ff.,  630  ff.,  641  f. 

Yatha  (Arabs)  (1),  377,  426  f.;  (2), 
429  f.,  487 

Yathaamar  (Saba),  211 
Yemen  (L),  2 

Zab,  Lower  (R),  53, 66,  75,  77, 188,  229, 
245,  635 

Zab,  Upper  (R),  13,  99,  111,  118,  146, 
229,  237,  370 


680 


INDEX  OF  PROPER  NAMES 


Zaban  (C),  58,  66,  122,  248 
Zaban-iddina,  463 
Zabibe  (Arabs),  189,  199 
Zaddi  (C),  156 
Zakir  (Hazrek),  162,  581 
Zakir  (1),  355;  (2),  356;  (3),  347, 431  ff., 
469 

Zakkalu  (T),  62,  583 
Zakutu,  277,  339,  347,  372,  394,  401  ff., 
405,  408,  412,  443,  449,  461 
Zamama-eriba,  462 
Zamama-shum-iddina,  58 
Zamani  (L),  77,  90,  96,  114 
Zame,  445 

Zamua  (L),  75,  88  ff.,  117 
Zaqar  (G),  407,  473  f. 

Zaqqalu  (C),  60 
Zarephath  (C),  298,  375 
Zariku,  24  f. 


Zarilab  (C),  527 
Zechariah  (I),  191 
Zedekiah  (Ascalon),  306 
Zelebieh  (C),  531 
Zenobia  (C),  531 
Zephaniah,  630  f.,  640 
Zerah  (Eg),  130 
Zer-ibni,  476 
Zer-iddina,  467 
Zer-ukin,  448 
Zichri,  196 

Zikirtu  (L),  227,  229,  232  ff.,  259,  262, 
264 

Zimzat  (A),  30 

Zion,  170,  214,  217,  301,  304,  379,  630 
Zirta  (C),  118 
Zoan  (C),  216 
Zobah  (C),  131,  427  f. 

Zoroaster,  244 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Abarakku  officials,  263,  271,  370,  392, 
434,  512,  591,  605 
Ablution  vessels,  239 
Abortion,  penalty  for,  551 
Acanthus  design,  499 
Acroterium,  use  in  Musasir  temple, 
241;  Fig.  101 

Adultery,  penalty  for,  624 
Agate,  beads  of,  147;  seals  of,  572;  in 
temple  at  Kalhu,  104 
Agriculture,  general  discussion,  510  ff., 
543;  neolithic,  9;  religion,  612 
Alabaster,  in  bas-reliefs,  100,  107,  202, 
280,  370,  569;  character  of,  569;  in 
figures,  98  f.,  321 ;  for  inscription, 
104  f.;  model  of  sphinx  in,  373;  Fig. 
139;  quarries  of,  270,  320,  562;  used 
for  sword-handle,  320;  vessels  of, 
561  f. 

Alfalfa,  brought  from  Iranian  Plateau, 
523 

Alluvium,  Babylonian,  9 
Alphabet,  development  of,  580  ff. 
Altar,  before  bulls,  100;  in  camp,  113, 
230,  307;  in  Ishtar  temple,  18;  for 
king  worship,  103;  for  king  worship 
in  Jerusalem,  198,  214,  632;  Phoeni¬ 
cian,  Fig.  38;  Phrygian,  223;  for  sick, 
407;  of  sun-god,  619;  on  temple 
tower,  277;  three-legged,  113 
Amber,  from  Baltic,  572 
Amulet,  572;  under  gates,  271;  in  form 
of  hands,  415 

Anatomy,  development  of,  588- 
Animals,  classification  of,  587;  of  god, 
Fig.  162 

Animism,  neolithic,  9;  Shumerian,  587, 
621 

Annals,  development  of,  577  ff.;  of 
Arik-den-ilu,  Fig.  33 
Anointing,  oil  for,  351,  376 
Antefix,  Fig.  165 

Antimony,  mountain  of,  156;  in  west¬ 
ern  Asia,  536 
Ants,  233 

Apes,  as  tribute  from  Egypt,  416 
Apples,  near  Lake  Van,  160;  at  ban¬ 
quet,  324 


Apprenticeship,  in  Babylonia,  538 
Arch,  discovery  and  use  of,  565;  in  gate, 
298,  306,  498;  frontispiece,  Figs.  45, 
47;  triumphal,  275,  565 
Archers,  92,  289,  298,  308,  313;  of  Gam- 
bulu,  354;  on  horseback  and  in  chari¬ 
ots,  83;  cf.  bow 

Architect,  324,  329,  335,  349,  371;  po¬ 
sition  of,  563;  Tab-shar  Ashur,  253, 
271 

Architecture,  563  ff. 

Ark,  of  Noah,  111,  586 
Armilla,  in  astronomy,  594 
Armlets,  gifts  to  client  princes,  350;  of 
gold,  294,  350;  of  king,  279;  neolithic, 
15;  in  sculptures,  86,  106,  279,  403; 
of  women,  15,  403 
Armoury,  329,  368  ff. 

Army,  in  general,  602  ff.;  elements  of, 
111,  229;  organisation  of,  81;  reforms 
in,  268 ;  standing  army,  207,  224,  268, 
419,  603 

Aromatics,  79;  cf.  spices 
Arrow,  constellation,  595 
Arrow-heads,  155 

Art,  Assvrian,  565  ff.,  651  ff.;  cf.  23, 
335 

Art,  Babylonian,  23 
Art,  Hittite,  40 
Artisans,  place  of,  538 
Ashakku  demons,  366  f. 

Ashlar,  use  in  building,  298  f. 

Asphalt,  use  in  building,  26,  29,  48,  71, 
557;  for  covering,  169;  cf.  bitumen 
Assafoetida,  in  garden,  523 
Asses,  68,  173;  in  army,  329;  stable  for, 
251;  for  transport,  216;  as  tribute, 
239,  383,  427;  wild,  192,  199,  429, 
479,  486;  hunting  wild,  502  f.;  Fig. 
157;  in  zoological  gardens,  95 
Astrolabe,  in  astronomy,  593 
Astrologer,  343,  394,  424,  463,  475 
Astrological  works,  584 
Astrology,  588  ff. 

Astronomical  works,  270 
Astronomy,  Arab,  589 
Augur,  402 

Auroch,  64;  cf.  bull,  wild 


682 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Autonomy,  of  free  city,  349,  527 
Awning,  151 

Axes,  301,  330;  Fig.  102;  in  army, 
235  f.;  of  bronze,  54,  63,  89,  230;  of 
copper,  238;  of  iron,  79;  in  religious 
ceremony,  345;  for  road-building,  63, 
79,  89,  230,  238 
Axle,  322 
Axe-men,  367 

Baggage-wagons,  329,  425 
Baker,  chief,  326,  392,  396,  454 
Balcony,  298 
Bandage,  412 
Bandeau,  15 

Banks,  of  wood,  in  siege,  605 
Banquet,  description  of,  324  f.;  in  re¬ 
liefs,  107,  278  f.,  324,  502  f.;  Fig.  158; 
room,  107,  278 
Bard,  Arab,  3 

Barley,  advances  of,  544;  among  Arabs, 
4;  in  Babylonia,  10;  chief  food,  522; 
as  dues,  91,  343;  flour  of,  557 ;  as  fod¬ 
der,  290;  in  Haldia,  234;  among  Hit- 
tites,  Fig.  96;  in  magic,  407;  as 
money,  536;  in  N.  Judah,  185;  neo¬ 
lithic  use  of,  9 

Basalt,  at  Amedi,  90;  bulls  of,  67;  coffin 
of,  71,  157;  column  of,  565;  gate  sock¬ 
ets  of,  52,  148;  lions  of,  67,  119;  use 
in  reliefs,  119,  277,  280 
Basilica,  499 

Baskets,  102,  319,  323  f.;  Figs.  53,  55, 
57,  109,  110 

Bas-reliefs,  82,  89,  98,  202,  280,  652 
Bath-house,  278,  356,  521;  bathroom, 
98,  557 

Battle-axe,  bronze,  25 
Battlements,  at  Ashur,  149,  370,  635; 
in  Babylonia,  285;  in  camp,  83;  at 
Dur  Sharrukin,  frontispiece;  in 
Elam,  437;  in  Kalhu,  100;  among 
Medes,  244;  Figs.  103,  104;  at  Musa- 
sir.  Fig.  101;  in  Nineveh,  326;  in 
Suhi,  Fig.  48;  in  Syria  and  Palestine, 
136,  298,  308;  Fig.  127 
Bazaars,  170 

Beads,  foundation  deposits  of,  54,  147; 
of  glass,  54,  147,  572;  glazed,  17;  on 
horses,  83;  necklaces,  15 
Bed,  156,  182,  285,  407;  in  Asia  Minor, 
311;  of  ebony,  94;  of  god,  240;  of 
ivory,  163,  240 


Beehive  huts,  321;  Fig.  88 
Beer,  407,  474,  558 
Bees,  79 

Beets,  in  garden,  523 
Bilingual  texts,  491 
Bit,  in  stable,  559 

Bitumen,  as  baseboard,  557;  with 
boats,  Figs.  29,  135;  at  Hit,  78;  in 
jars,  561;  as  mortar,  319,  349,  441, 
564;  cf.  asphalt 
Blanket,  horse,  116 
Blessings,  168,  550 
Blood  money,  346,  546 
Blood  revenge,  4 

Boar,  377,  435;  constellation,  596;  cf. 
swine 

Boat,  in  Assyria,  321  f.;  Fig.  115;  in 
Babylonia,  123;  in  N.  Syria,  126  f.; 
in  Philistia,  306;  of  reeds,  94;  Figs. 
29,  47,  135;  cf.  ships 
Body-guard,  230,  233,  237,  268,  354, 
367,  396,  465,  484,  603,  607;  cf. 
guardsman 
Boiling,  558 
Boils,  73 

Boomerang,  25,  105,  276 
Boots,  laced,  244,  274;  Fig.  103;  cf. 
sandals,  shoes 

Boring  ear,  as  punishment,  551 
Boundary  stone,  168  f.,  251,  353,  512, 
622 

Bow,  71,  82,  105,  108,  111,  151,  278, 
293,  307,  343,  376,  605;  Figs.  45-48, 
50,  57,  58,  104,  113,  159,  154,  155, 
158;  army  unit,  480;  of  Babylonia, 
176;  of  Elam,  435;  as  land  unit,  518; 
Philistine,  Fig.  123 
Bowl,  151;  Figs.  57,  58 
Bowmen,  268,  604;  of  Elam,  435 
Boxwood,  gates  of,  441;  mould  of,  349; 
pillars  of,  321 ;  sceptres  of,  239;  tables 
of,  240;  throne  of,  73;  tribute  of,  from 
Cyprus,  226;  from  Egypt,  383;  from 
Judah,  306;  from  Phoenicians,  95 
Bracelets,  572;  Fig.  166;  gifts  of,  332, 
416;  of  king,  102,  279,  307;  of  men, 
86,  106;  of  winged  genius,  100;  of 
women,  15 

Brandy,  date,  558;  sesame,  349 
Brazier,  charcoal,  16,  325 
Bread,  83,  275,  557 

Breccia,  in  building,  369;  pavement, 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


683 


295;  source  of,  236,  320  f.;  vessels  of, 
320 

Brewing,  233 
Bribery,  409,  433  f. 

Brick  god,  441 
Brick  mould,  349,  563,  642 
Bricks,  319,  349,  563;  glazed,  Figs.  109, 
119,  120;  painted,  Fig.  134 
Bride  gift,  552 

Bridge,  231,  449;  arched,  112;  in  Arme¬ 
nia,  112,  183;  in  Babylonia,  256;  over 
canal,  79;  dues,  526;  over  Euphrates, 
183;  making,  253,  304;  old  bridge  in 
Nineveh,  522;  cf.  pontoon 
Bridle,  114,  185 

Bronze,  202,  224,  407;  arrow-heads, 
155;  axes,  54,  63,  89,  230;  battle-axes, 
25;  bits,  559;  bowls,  91,  94,  183; 
bracelets,  Fig.  166;  buckets,  331; 
bulls,  495;  caldrons,  91;  from  Car- 
chemish,  94;  casting,  320;  censer,  94; 
from  Cyprus,  183;  daggers,  240; 
doors,  349,  497;  Egyptian  motives, 
507;  gate  bands,  111,  148,  151,  281, 
568,  571;  Figs.  68,  69;  gate  posts, 
148;  gods  in,  94;  horns,  485;  images, 
240  f.;  knives,  25;  lances,  240;  laver, 
240;  levers,  331 ;  lions,  320;  as  money, 
547;  from  Musasir,  239;  pans,  91; 
pick  heads,  155;  shields,  239;  spears, 
25;  statuettes,  571;  sword,  48;  ves¬ 
sels,  85,  91,  239 
Buckle,  93  f.,  296 
Buckler,  239  ff. 

Buffaloes,  128 
Buffoons,  83 

Bull,  547;  Fig.  119;  of  Adad,  618;  of 
basalt,  67;  constellation,  596;  human¬ 
headed,  150,  202,  271,  274,*  280,  321 
ff.,  333,  371,  373,  475,  495,  570  f.; 
frontispiece,  Fig.  60,  132,  140;  in 
Elam,  486;  in  Haldia,  239;  in  Musa¬ 
sir,  239;  in  Sha  Dikanni,  86;  wild 
bulls,  78,  95,  240,  313,  382;  Fig.  49; 
worship  of,  616 

Burial,  early  Semitic,  25;  of  kings, 
283;  later  period,  557,  625;  cf.  coffin, 
grave,  funeral  mound 
Burnt  offering,  345 
Business  documents,  22,  542  ff.,  624 
Business,  taint  connected  with,  510 
Butler,  394,  513 
Butter,  473 


Cage,  500;  Fig.  153 
Calamus,  379 

Caldrons,  91,  125,  171,  239,  285;  Fig. 
46 

Camels,  of  Arabia,  4,  210  f.,  216,  289, 
377,  382,  427,  429;  in  army,  229; 
drivers,  Fig.  142;  from  Egypt,  142; 
Fig.  77;  figureheads,  126;  from 
Medes,  231;  two-humped,  115,  142 
Camp,  83,  107,  112  f.,  125,  230,  298, 
307;  Fig.  171 

Canal,  55,  71,  99,  269,  277,  316,  330, 
370,  558;  in  Babylonia,  10,  254,  356; 
Fig.  7;  in  Haldia,  160,  221,  235;  in 
Suhi,  79;  dues  of,  523;  up-keep  of, 
519 

Candlestick,  113,  308 
Cap,  15, 187,  247;  fez-like,  102;  horned, 
100,  102,  333;  liberty,  112,  127,  141, 
289,  319 

Capricorn,  291,  595 
Captain,  347,  604 
Caravans,  5,  12 
Cardamon,  in  garden,  523 
Carnelian,  239 
Carpenters,  274,  349 
Cart,  322;  cf.  ox-carts 
Cassia,  in  garden,  523 
Casting,  320  f. 

Castration,  as  penalty,  551 
Cattle,  128 
Causeway,  232 
Cavalry,  81,  93,  229,  604 
Cedar,  196,  229;  from  Amanus,  329, 
441;  colonnades  of,  321;  in  Esagila, 
441;  in  gardens,  69;  land  of,  169;  of 
Lebanon,  65,  126,  274,  298,  304,  369, 
441,  497,  643;  Fig.  124;  in  palaces, 
99,  148,  202,  320;  from  Sirara,  369, 
497;  in  Harran  temple,  380,  495;  as 
tribute,  69,  129 

Cellarer,  chief,  110,  152,  177,  189,  345, 
396,  605 

Cemetery,  71,  318,  521 

Censer,  94,  414,  473,  502 

Census,  511  f.,  514,  517  f.,  522,  619 

Centaur,  240 

Chaff,  522,  557 

Chain,  281,  294 

Chair,  311 

Chalcedony,  104 

Chamberlain  of  Palace,  110,  152,  177, 
203,  217,  252,  261,  265,  379,  392,  605 


684 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Chancellery,  491 
Chaplet,  502 
Charcoal,  16,  325,  557 
Chariot,  81  f.,  107,  135,  268,  293,  379, 
408,  437,  604;  Figs.  44,  47,  50,  68, 
118, 149, 154, 171;  constellation,  592; 
model,  25;  Fig.  23 
Charioteers,  367,  392 
Charter,  of  free  cities,  207,  268  f.,  347, 
349, 432,  443,  513,  515,  525,  527,  531, 
545  f.,  550,  619,  651;  to  private  per¬ 
sons,  168,  204,  512 

Checker-board  plan  of  streets,  528,  555 
Chicory,  in  garden,  523 
Chief,  Arab,  598 
Chisel,  116 
Chiton,  239,  306 
Chronology,  578 
Chryselephantine,  240 
Circle,  divine,  240 
Cistern,  216,  303,  558 
City  State,  21,  525,  598 
Clear-story,  320,  335,  507 
Cleansing,  religious,  22,  351,  356,  390, 
477 

Client  State,  146,  603 
Cloak,  92,  100,  111,  127 
Cloth,  559 
Coal,  536 
Cobalt,  536 

Code  of  Laws,  Assyrian,  550  ff.,  602; 

of  Hammurabi,  441,  532,  550 
Coffins,  37,  71,  157,  625 
Coins,  536  ff. 

College,  priestly,  176 

Colonnade,  202,  319,  321,  323,  335,  497 

Colophon,  491  f. 

Colors,  107,  149  ff.,  270,  277,  280,  341, 
569 

Colossi,  239,  274,  321,  329,  336 
Column,  as  Asherah,  632;  in  Ashur, 
494;  in  Asia  Minor,  311;  in  Dur  Shar- 
rukin,  “Greek  temple,”  277;  Fig. 
115;  in  Musasir,  “Greek  temple,” 
241;  Fig.  101;  in  Nineveh,  319,  321, 
498;  origin  of,  565;  in  Palestine, 
306  f.;  in  Tyre,  298 
Comb,  use  in  pottery,  16 
Commissariat,  604 
Common-Law  marriage,  552 
Companions,  396,  418,  431,  454,  464, 
603 

Company,  604 


Conduit,  196 
Confiscation,  513 

Conglomerate,  of  Mesopotamia,  11;  of 
Assyria,  13;  at  Ashur,  13,  26,  564 
Conjunction  of  sun  and  moon,  345,  590 
Conjurers,  Shumerian,  22 
Constellations,  589,  595 
Contract,  537 
Cooker,  fireless,  17,  275 
Cooking,  17,  230,  275 
Copper,  axes,  238;  bowls,  63;  from  Car- 
chemish,  37;  clasps  of,  320;  coins  of, 
537;  from  Cyprus,  183;  early,  from 
Ashur,  Fig.  15;  foundation  deposits 
of,  54;  gates  of,  98,  148;  horse  trap¬ 
pings,  460;  ingots  of,  126;  mines  of, 
85,  534;  plating  of,  329;  relief  of,  316; 
smith,  518;  in  Sinai,  33;  statuette, 
Fig.  17;  tribute  of,  127  f.,  163,  383; 
use  of,  early,  1 
Coriander,  in  garden,  523 
Cornelian,  104 
Cornice,  311,  320 

Corvee,  241,  268,  277,  349,  354,  395, 
497,  513,  516,  518  f.,  526,  540 
Cotton,  331,  523,  560 
Couches,  127,  138,  311,  324,  502;  Fig. 

158;  ivory,  91,  171,  306;  house,  371 
Court,  16 
Courtesan,  455 
Crab,  298 
Cream,  349 

Creation,  story  of,  575  f.,  580,  584  ff., 
614 

Crescent,  102  f.,  538 
Cress,  472,  523 
Cribs,  372 

Crimes,  in  law  code,  550  ff. 

Crocodile,  from  Egypt,  65 
Crop  system,  521 
Crow,  Fig.  119 
Crown,  296,  349,  380,  403 
Crown  land,  512,  519 
Crown  prince,  89,  153,  258,  325,  337, 
368,  384,  386,  404,  465,  490,  513,  601 
Crucible,  561 
Cuckoo,  in  magic,  413 
Cucumbers,  160,  294,  523 
Cuirass,  293 
Culture,  Assyrian,  504 
Cumin,  372,  523 
Cuneiform  signs,  22,  34,  574 
Cup,  drinking,  Fig.  118 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


685 


Cup  holes,  primitive  religious  symbols, 
132 

Curses,  283,  414,  421,  474;  in  charters, 
168,  512,  515;  in  documents,  491, 
550;  in  inscription,  633 
Cushions,  107 
Cross,  102 

Cylinder  seals,  104,  542,  567,  572 
Cymbals,  Fig.  150 

Cypress,  399;  from  Amanus,  320,  369, 
441;  censer,  473;  chariot,  408;  colon¬ 
nade  of,  321 ;  doors  of,  349;  in  garden, 
331;  of  Lebanon,  304,  441;  in  magic, 
407;  in  palaces,  99,  202,  235  f.,  319  ff.; 
for  roof,  495;  from  Sirara,  320,  369 

Dagger,  71,  86,  334,  571,  605;  of  bronze, 
240;  of  gold,  239;  of  gold  inlay,  294; 
of  iron,  112,  242,  341,  427,  434,  455 
Dam,  330 

Dates,  10,  286,  288,  324,  355,  437,  484, 
502,  515,  522;  brandy  from,  558; 
price  of,  399;  cf.  palm 
Dead,  486;  among  Arabs,  6;  home  of, 
230;  sacrifices  for,  414;  cf.  burial, 
coffin 

Dedication  of  slave,  549 
Deer,  68,  330;  Fig.  152 
Degree,  in  astronomy,  593 
Delegate,  official,  461,  477,  547,  554 
Deluge,  story  of,  76,  88,  189,  225,  232, 
239  f.,  387,  585 

Demons,  414,  423,  436;  Fig.  162 
^Deportation  of  captives,  24,  177,  179, 
187  f.,  209  f.,  303,  362,  375,  509 
Diadem,  328 
Diamond,  341 

Dictionary,  489,  576;  Fig.  34 
Dill,  in  garden,  523 
Dipper,  constellation,  595 
Dirges,  171 

Disease,  73,  169,  372,  381,  406  ff.,  411 
ff.,  473  f.;  cf.  epilepsy,  fever,  leprosy, 
plague,  physician 

Disk,  winged,  107,  200,  333,  613;  Fig. 
50 

Disked  star,  108 

Divination,  320,  379;  cf.  incantation 
Divine  right  of  kings,  601 
Divorce,  laws  of,  552,  624 
Dog,  bearing  gods,  333;.  in  city,  377, 
475;  dead  dog,  comparison  with,  354, 
435,  457,  461;  in  hunting,  502;  in 


magic,  473;  of  potter,  352;  in  popular 
saying,  381,  395,  409  f.,  417,  432, 
458;  on  shield,  239;  cf.  mastiff 
Dolphin,  95 
Dome,  565;  Fig.  116 
Door,  521 
Doorkeeper,  346 
Door  sockets,  148 
Door  sills,  322;  Fig.  151 
Doves,  19,  192,  474 
Dowel  holes,  Fig.  61 
Dowry,  70,  91,  128;  laws  of,  552 
Dragon,  216,  239  f.,  333 
Drainage,  275,  556,  565 
Drain  exits,  498 
Drain-pipe,  98 

Dreams,  as  omens,  348  f.,  387,  416,  421, 
436,  473,  485,  496;  god  of,  407 
Dress,  descriptions  of,  15,  25,  78,  91, 
105,  115,  125  ff.,  141,  274,  279,  299, 
314,  502,  505,  559,  567,  570,  619 
Drinking  cups,  279,  562 
Dromedaries,  127,  199 
Dropsy,  438 
Drum,  84 

Drunkenness,  434,  558 
Duck,  287, 558 

Dues,  154,  241,  288,  343,  349,  394,  512; 

cf.  land  system 
Durra,  522 
Dyeing,  560 

Eagle,  280,  313;  constellation,  595 
Eagle-headed  figure,  100,  107,  333;  Fig. 
55 

Ear-lappets,  289,  308 
Earrings,  86,  102,  106,  279,  403,  572 
Earth,  in  geography,  596 
Earth  Mother,  9;  cf.  Mother  Goddess, 
Ishtar 

Ebony,  from  Cyprus,  226 ;  from  Egypt, 
383;  from  Iakin,  180;  from  Judah, 
306;  mould  of,  349;  in  palace,  99; 
from  Phoenicians,  95;  poignards,  240; 
sceptres  of,  239 

Eclipse,  356,  419,  432;  Jupiter  in,  339, 
388;  of  moon,  345,  388,  423,  436,  589; 
of  sun,  171,  309,  345,  436,  589;  Venus 
in,  388 

Ecliptic,  589,  593 
Education,  386,  489 
Eels,  289 


686 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Elders,  council  of,  in  Babylonia,  449, 
465,  525,  529,  531;  in  Sulii,  79 
Electron,  416 

Elephants,  from  Egypt,  142;  hides,  183, 
224,  306;  from  Mesopotamia,  35,  64, 
121,  142;  from  Phoenicia,  95 
Emmer,  343 

Enamel,  104,  271;  cf.  tiling 
Epilepsy,  436,  545 

Eponym,  77,  110,  152,  155,  172,  203, 
338,  542,  605;  in  Asia  Minor,  27 
Equator,  celestial,  593  f. 

Equinox,  593,  621 
Equity,  548 
Escalade,  605 
Ethics,  622 

Eunuch,  chief,  343;  dress,  151,  279;  in 
Elam,  436;  as  general,  247;  in  Hal- 
dia,  240;  in  palace,  105, 107, 122, 141, 
151,  153,  168,  247,  278,  307;  in  pri¬ 
vate  families,  539;  scribes,  179,  188; 
Fig.  80 

Expiation,  397 
Extradition,  51 

Falcon,  413 
Fallow  deer,  502 
Feast-days,  621 

Feathers,  in  head-dress,  306,  571;  Fig. 
123 

Ferry,  253;  dues,  513 
Fever,  412  ff. 

Feudal  system,  512;  cf.  land  system 
Fig,  in  Assyria,  270,  278,  280,  303,  324; 
Figs.  115,  120;  in  Palestine,  524,  630, 
642 

Fillet,  105  f.,  571;  among  Aramaeans, 
91;  among  Babylonians,  285;  among 
Egyptians,  142;  in  Gilzan,  115; 
among  Haldians,  241;  of  king,  152; 
among  Medes,  244 
Fines,  as  penalty,  551 
Fir,  278,  441,  498;  Fig.  115 
Fire,  star,  596 
Fireplace,  8,  16 
First-fruits,  183,  515 
Fiscal  agent,  417,  533 
Fish,  56,  113,  230,  291,  473;  constella¬ 
tion,  595;  god,  102;  sacred,  86 
Fishmen,  316 

Fisherman,  289,  306,  322,  336;  Fig.  145 
Flax,  560 

Flaying,  85,  87,  91,  208,  227  f.,  308,  438 


Flies,  324;  of  wall  (machines),  311,  605 
Flints,  1,  8 
Floor,  16 
Flour,  557 

Flowers,  of  prairie,  11;  Fig.  5 
Fly  flapper,  107,  278  f.,  307,  324,  501  f.; 
Figs.  58,  158;  in  Hamath,  138;  in 
Musasir,  239 

Foreign  elements  in  Assyrian  culture, 
507 

Foundation  stone,  349 
Fox,  122,  362 
Francolins,  95 
Frankincense,  379 
Free-will  offerings,  168,  514,  526 
Free  cities,  268,  349  f.,  525  ff.;  cf.  char¬ 
ters 

Freedom  from  dues,  168,  207,  349,  457, 
517,  526  f. 

Freehold,  511,  523 

Frescoes,  104,  107,  569;  cf.  painting 

Fruit  syrups,  558 

Fuller,  196,  560 

Funeral-mound,  411 

Funeral-pile,  411,  638 

Fungus,  372 

Furnace,  281 

Garden,  513  f.,  522,  557;  Fig.  115;  of 
Merodach  Baladan  III,  523 
Gargoyle,  241 
Garlic,  185,  523 
Garnet,  572 

Gate,  palace,  frontispiece,  Figs.  45,  47, 
116 

Gate-house,  319 
Gazelle,  95,  429,  486,  502  f. 

Genius,  of  king,  391,  463,  601 
Genius,  winged,  105,  323;  frontispiece, 
Figs.  53,  57,  109,  110 
Ghosts,  621,  625 

Girdle,  299,  322;  Elamite,  436;  loosen, 
of  goddess,  453;  Philistine,  306 
Glass,  104,  281,  561;  beads  of,  54,  147, 
572 

Glass  paste,  17,  572 

Glaze,  17,  270,  561;  blue  glaze,  104 

Globe,  winged,  103 

Goats,  128,  179,  510;  Arab,  4;  as  food, 
558;  neolithic,  9;  as  sacrifice,  Fig.  97; 
skins,  92,  94,  284,  287,  558 
Gold,  from  Adini,  93  f.;  from  Amedi, 
91;  amulets,  572;  from  Amukkanu, 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


687 


296;  bricks,  79;  buckle,  93,  296;  buck¬ 
ler,  239  f.;  crown,  296,  349;  from 
Cyprus,  226;  dagger,  239;  from  Da¬ 
mascus,  163;  earrings,  572;  from 
Egypt,  383;  fields,  534;  fly  flappers, 
239;  foundation  deposits,  55,  572; 
ingots,  126,  142;  inlay,  104,  239  f.; 
from  Judah,  142,  305;  key,  239;  leaf, 
107;  in  magic,  407;  from  Musasir, 
239;  necklace,  94,  180,  296;  pail,  121, 
142;  poignard,  239;  portal,  239;  red, 
239,  349,  366,  403;  refined,  370;  ring, 
93;  shield,  239;  sword,  94,  240;  in 
temple,  345  f.;  throne,  94;  thunder¬ 
bolt,  68,  572;  vessels,  ISO,  476 
Goldsmith,  476 
Goose,  558 
Government,  66 
Governors,  53,  97 
Graft,  609 

Grammatical  texts,  491,  576 
Grants,  512;  cf.  charter 
Grapes,  324;  Fig.  96;  cf.  wine 
Grasshopper,  235  f.,  378,  434,  502,  642 
Grasslands,  northern,  7 
Gratings,  498 

Grave,  475,  572,  625;  cf.  coffin,  burial 
Grazing,  510 
Greaves,  112 
Greenstone,  534 

Guardsman,  259,  267  f.,  355,  392,  431, 
434,  461,  517;  cf.  body-guard 
Gufa,  Figs.  29,  135 
Guild,  255,  538,  559 
Guilloche  pattern,  570 
Guitar,  83 

Gypsum,  at  Ashur,  29 ;  in  building,  67, 
86,  557;  figures  in,  277;  Figs.  16,  18; 
hand  talisman  in,  239;  in  Mesopota¬ 
mia,  12;  at  Nineveh,  322 

Hair,  treatment  of,  15,  71,  120,  187, 
244,  306,  567,  619 
Halter,  500 
Hammer,  281 
Hanging  gardens,  497 
Hare,  278,  324,  501 

Harem,  99,  186,  276  f.,  305,  386,  426, 
498;  Fig.  116 
Harness,  329 

Harp,  84,  90,  113;  Figs.  150,  158 
Harper,  234 


Harvest,  543 
Harvest  song,  173 
Hatchet,  82,  89,  322 
Hawk,  119 

Helmet,  Assyrian,  111,  152,  293,  333  f., 
571,  605;  Figs.  46,  50,  104,  150,  171; 
crested,  315;  with  ear-lappets,  308;  of 
Ekron,  219;  Haldian,  114,  315;  of 
Hamath,  136,  138;  of  Hattina,  126; 
of  Lachish,  308;  of  Mesopotamia,  86; 
spiked,  86,  136,  138,  152,  308,  333  f., 
605 

Hemp,  372 
Herbs,  523 

Herring-bone  pattern,  150  f. 

Hexastyle  temple,  241 
Hides,  dues  of,  513;  cf.  elephants 
History,  Assyrian  writing  of,  577  fl\, 
652 

Hoe,  521 
Hoe  culture,  612 

Honey,  79,  349,  372,  407,  473  f.,  558 
Honeysuckle  design,  561 
Hook  and  line,  in  fishing,  322 
Horizon,  in  astronomy,  593 
Horn,  192;  of  altar,  619;  of  temple 
tower,  485 
Horoscope,  596 

Horses,  Figs.  47,  49,  50,  68,  77,  114, 
154-156;  from  Amedi,  91;  Armenian, 
113,  234,  259,  314;  in  art,  500,  503; 
from  Ashur,  35;  in  Babylonia,  354; 
Cappadocian,  420;  Egyptian,  217, 
383,  416,  507;  Elamite,  460;  from 
Kirruri,  85;  in  lion  hunt,  500;  led 
horse  in  cavalry,  111;  Median,  231, 
245,  248,  362,  523,  619;  origin  of,  523, 
619;  stables,  275,  329,  559;  Syrian, 
128,  173;  as  tribute,  68;  white,  460, 
546 

Hostages,  67,  258 
Hostler,  249 

House,  556  fl\;  early,  16;  model,  18; 
Fig.  22 

House  of  Records,  394,  513 
House  of  Wisdom,  348  f.,  538 
Housekeeper,  346,  442,  476  f. 

Human  sacrifice,  Assyrian,  53,  157, 
546,  550;  Hebrew,  197,  379,  632; 
Moabite,  140 

Hunting,  64,  80;  cf.  asses,  bulls,  fallow 
deer,  lions 

Hydraulic  works,  330,  508;  cf.  canals 


688 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Hymns,  16,  574,  580,  600,  622 
Hyssop,  in  garden,  523 

Ibex,  68,  83,  230,  313 
Ideograph,  574 
Immunities,  512 

Impalement,  for  rebels,  87,  112,  114, 
144,  177,  246,  308,  334,  431;  as  pun¬ 
ishment,  551;  Fig.  127 
Imperial  free  city,  476,  519,  523,  525 
ff.,  619,  651;  cf.  charter 
Incantations,  for  crown  prince,  397 ;  at 
death,  475;  against  disease,  390,  406, 
413  f.,  473,  575,  621;  against  eclipse, 
339,  345,  356,  591;  against  fungus, 
372;  in  library,  490;  before  meals, 
325;  Nineveh,  mistress  of,  642;  Se¬ 
mitic,  22;  Shumerian,  16,  393;  in  war, 
475 

Incense,  341;  at  banquet,  326;  bowls, 
239;  in  ceremonies,  359,  407;  in  He¬ 
brew  ceremonies,  379;  holders,  20; 
for  joy  of  heart,  269;  offerings,  168 
Infantry,  81,  93,  111,  604 
Ink,  583 

Inlay,  239  f.,  416,  563 
Insects,  587 
Inspectors,  261,  547 
Interest,  520,  543 

Iron,  302;  from  Amedi,  91;  arrow¬ 
heads,  247;  axes,  79;  from  Carche- 
mish,  57,  94,  128;  chain,  281;  dagger, 
112,  242,  341,  427,  434;  from  Damas¬ 
cus,  143,  163;  at  Dur  Sharrukin,  275, 
281 ;  fetters,  366;  foil,  147 ;  foundation 
deposit,  54,  147;  furnace,  281;  grat¬ 
ings,  498;  hammer,  281;  hatchet,  82, 
89;  from  Hattina,  127;  lamps,  239; 
magic,  407;  mines,  85,  535;  mattock, 
281;  pickaxe,  281;  ploughshare,  281; 
smiths,  518;  spike,  67;  staff,  325; 
threshing  implements,  143 
Irrigation,  235  f.,  521;  in  Babylonia,  10; 

machine,  80,  521;  rights,  554 
•Irrigator,  517;  official,  351,  390;  con¬ 
stellation,  595 

Ivory,  from  Adini,  94;  from  Amedi,  91; 
Aramaean,  79;  bed,  94, 163,  240;  from 
Carchemish,  224;  casket,  502;  couch, 
91,  171,  306;  from  Dakkuru,  123; 
from  Dilmun,  257;  Egyptian  mo¬ 
tives,  507,  562  f.;  eyes,  104;  from 
Hattina,  144;  litter,  163;  mould,  349; 


from  Musasir,  239  f.;  Phoenician,  95; 
sceptre,  239;  seat,  306;  from  Syria, 
183;  table,  79,  94;  throne,  79,  94,  99; 
tusks  of,  Fig.  46;  wand,  240 

Jackal,  213 
Jasper,  233 

Javelin,  111,  2J3,  293,  437;  Fig.  150;  in 
Armenia,  114,  314 
Jeweller,  345 

Judge,  352,  547;  chief,  346,  512,  602 
Judgments,  547 
Juniper,  99 

Kalak,  raft  on  skins,  12,  517 
Key,  217,  239 
Kid,  341,  558 
Kidney,  in  astrology,  423 
King  god,  650;  Ashur-nasir-apal  II  as, 
104;  images  of  king,  100,  105,  144, 
177;  images  in  Jerusalem,  198,  214, 
379;  as  Melech,  379;  Sharrukin  as 
god,  27;  Semitic  origin  of,  22 
Kitchen,  275 
Knives,  25,  102 
Knobs,  colored,  149 
Kohl,  for  adornment,  427 
Koran,  210 

Ladders,  112,  308;  cf.  escalade 
Ladles,  142,  308 
Lamb,  as  sacrifice,  5 
Lamentation,  488 
Lamp,  71,  239,  625 

Lance,  Assyrian,  333,  605;  Babylonian, 
176;  Haldian,  112,  240 
Lancers,  604 
Lancet,  492 

Land  system,  520;  illustrations  of,  168, 
200,  207,  261  f.,  330,  353,  511,  599; 
early,  22;  Haldian,  160 
Lapis  lazuli,  Adad  represented  on 
strips  of,  350;  from  Ashur,  35;  color 
of,  126;  frieze,  370;  from  Judah,  306; 
mountain  of,  362;  from  Musasir,  239; 
in  palace,  320;  from  Phoenicia,  126; 
as  penalty,  546;  from  Shupria,  364; 
in  temple,  104;  on  temple  tower  as 
casing,  485 
Lark,  14 

Lash,  in  magic,  414;  as  penalty,  551 
Lasso,  502 

Laver,  198,  240  f . ;  Fig.  101 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


689 


Laws,  550  ff.,  577,  624,  647 
Lead,  169,  536;  from  Amedi,  91;  foil, 
147;  foundation  deposit,  54  f.,  147; 
ingots,  126,  142;  from  Judah,  142;  in 
magic,  407 ;  mines,  85 ;  as  money,  537, 
551 ;  from  Musasir,  239;  from  Phoeni¬ 
cia,  126;  from  Suhi,  121 
Lease,  543 

Leather,  560;  buckets,  521;  robes,  112 

Legal  tablets,  148 

Legends,  16,  575 

Leggings,  314 

Leprosy,  173,  194,  328 

Letters,  258  ff.,  493  f.,  577,  624,  652 

Lettuce,  523 

Levers,  322,  331 

Levirate,  552 

Levy,  138,  268,  516,  519,  540,  604;  free¬ 
dom  from,  168,  207,  513,  526 
Libations,  in  Elam,  437;  at  evening, 
601;  on  expedition,  113;  Hittite,  Fig. 
97;  libation  house,  477;  in  Judah, 
379;  for  king,  346;  over  lion,  89,  501; 
at  oath,  247;  for  Queen  of  Heaven, 
379;  in  Shupria,  367 
Library,  of  Ashur-bani-apal,  489  ff., 
496,'  580,  652;  of  Sargon,  270;  of  Sen¬ 
nacherib,  335 
Licorice,  413,  523 
Life  after  death,  625 
Life,  Egyptian  symbol  of,  279 
Lillies,  498,  502 

Limestone,  in  building,  132,  319,  321, 
326,  329,  368,  370,  564;  bulls  of,  99; 
coffin  of,  71;  inscriptions,  55,  151, 
394;  in  Mesopotamia,  12;  pedestal 
of,  105 

Linen,  184,  560 

Lion,  340;  Fig.  112;  bronze,  320,  571; 
constellation,  595;  in  Elam,  486;  fig¬ 
ures,  86,  119,  202;  head  of,  279,  372; 
human-headed,  100,  104,  274;  hunt, 
64,  107,  156,  498  ff.,  569;  Figs.  67, 
153,  156;  in  Israel,  193,  209;  in  Ju¬ 
dah,  380;  in  Phoenicia,  95;  reliefs  of, 
98,  120,  274,  333;  sacred  to  mother 
goddess,  19;  from  Sarugi,  119;  Fig. 
44;  from  Sha  Dikanni,  86;  from  Suhi, 
120;  from  Til  Barsip,  119;  winged, 
151,  486 

Literature,  16,  492,  574 
Litter,  163 


Liver,  as  seat  of  emotions,  242,  318, 
320,  340,  366,  587 

Liver  omens,  206,  359  ff.,  388  f.,  424, 
445,  451  f.,  587,  606,  613,  619 
Loans,  520,  543 
Lock,  239,  342 
Locust,  170,  293,  324 
Loin-cloth,  571 
Loom,  559 
Lot,  sacred,  587 

Lotus,  187,  278,  280,  498  f.;  Fig.  151 
Lucky  days,  118 
Lynx,  constellation,  596 
Lyre,  171,  279 

Mace,  100,  103,  105,  107,  279  f.,  322, 
324,  341,  437;  Fig.  115 
Magic,  22,  613,  621 
Magician,  22,  356,  397,  402,  413,  591, 
622 

Mail,  coats  of,  605 
Malachite,  319 
Mallet,  116 
Malt,  233 

Mana,  224,  281,  537 
Manganese,  536 
Manger,  83,  289 
Manor,  510;  cf.  land  system 
Manumission,  540 
Marble,  104,  142,  320  f. 

Mares,  4,  182,  233,  434 
Market,  559 

Marriage,  551  ff.;  cf.  dowry 
Mason,  349,  366;  marks,  68 
Mastiff,  500,  503,  510 
Mat,  reed,  16,  20 
Matriarchate,  189 
Mattock,  281 
Mead,  324 

Medicine,  492,  588;  cf.  disease 
Melon,  160 
Mercenaries,  224,  305 
Merchants,  394,  418;  chief  of,  525 
Mercury,  536 
Meridian,  593 
Messenger,  official,  325,  341 
Metal  worker,  349;  gate  of,  at  Ashur, 
54,  71,  75,  98,  148  f.,  535,  559 
Metallurgy,  508,  571 
Metic,  528 
Metrology,  281 
Mice,  309 

Middle  class,  511,  538 


690 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Milestone,  271,  334,  556 
Milk,  407,  558 

Millennium,  391  f.,  399,  408  f.,  494,  652 
Millet,  10,  186,  287 
Mirage,  6 

Misdemeanour,  551 
Moat,  54,  71,  98,  148,  326,  635 
Money,  coined,  321 
Money  economy,  536  ff. 

Monkey,  106,  142,  151 
Monotheism,  165,  612,  653 
Months,  589  f.,  593;  in  Asia  Minor  27, 
Moon,  as  deity,  5;  cf.  Sin 
Mortgage,  546 

Mother  Goddess,  612,  653;  in  Asia  Mi¬ 
nor,  222;  at  Ashur,  16;  at  Carche- 
mish,  224;  at  Comana,  Fig.  94;  image 
of,  20;  Semitic,  22;  temple  at  Ashur, 
25;  cf.  Ishtar 

Mould,  brick,  349,  563,  642;  metal,  538; 
Fig.  24 

Mound,  in  warfare,  605 
Mourning,  495 

Mouth  washing,  ceremony  of,  406 
Mud  brick,  16;  Fig.  7 
Mules,  in  army,  329;  in  Babylonia,  285; 
from  Kirruri,  85;  letters  about,  275; 
Median,  231,  251,  261,  275;  from 
Qummuh,  226;  stables  for,  247,  251; 
from  Syria,  127,  173;  from  Togor- 
mah,  225 

Murder,  penalty  for,  549 
Murex,  for  purple,  560 
Musharkis,  official,  394,  462,  465 
Music,  83  f.,  341;  cf.  cymbals,  drum, 
guitar,  harp 
Must,  473 
Mustache,  187 

Mutilation,  as  punishment,  551 
Mutton,  511,  558 
Myrrh,  79,  372 
Myrtle,  333 

Nagir,  official,  365;  Elamite  official,  437 
ff.,  449,  463,  466,  479 
Nails,  149,  341 
Napkin,  107,  307,  325 
Necklace,  572;  bead,  15;  gold,  94,  180, 
296,  416;  in  sculpture,  102,  502,  568 
Neolithic,  at  Carchemish,  37;  imple¬ 
ments,  534;  man,  8  ff.;  objects  from 
Asia  Minor,  Fig.  10;  pottery,  16,  561; 
use  of  precious  metals,  537 


Ner,  official,  324,  512 
Net,  193,  248,  501  f.;  Fig.  145,  152 
New  House,  373,  394,  451,  545,  627 
New  Moon,  festival  of,  170,  590 
New  Year’s  Day,  181,  255,  602,  621, 
651 

New  Year’s  House,  269,  316  f.,  370, 
453,  495;  Map  6 
Nickel,  536 
Night  watch,  396 
North  star,  594 
Nudity,  sacrificial,  15 

Oak,  560 

Oars,  123,  126  f.,  322;  Fig.  69 
Oath,  sworn  by  Ashur,  347 ;  in  conspir¬ 
acy,  359;  in  court,  353,  553;  of  loy¬ 
alty  to  king,  246  f.,  338,  342,  384, 
389,  398,  400  ff .,  425  f.,  443,  448,  455, 
554;  in  name  of  Ashur,  67,  76  f.,  174, 
199,  429;  in  name  of  great  gods,  342, 
366,  375,  389;  as  living  being,  427;  of 
Mati-ilu,  173;  text  of,  173  f.,  375;  by 
Marduk,  in  Babylonia,  154;  private 
oath,  405 

Obelisk,  71,  151,  568;  Egyptian,  416 
Obeliskoi,  537 
Obol,  537 
Obsidian,  8 

Oil,  olive,  advance  of,  520;  anointing 
with,  324,  376;  divination  by,  320, 
351,  359,  372;  foundation  deposit, 
349;  happy  as,  392;  in  Israel,  132, 
171, 192,  213;  in  Judah  of  north,  186; 
among  Mannai,  232;  among  Medes, 
246;  as  medicine,  269,  413;  oath  by, 
342;  price  of,  29,  186,  269,  399;  as 
ration,  246,  253,  343,  462;  of  sesame, 
522;  for  wounds,  269 
Ointment,  104,  412 
Oleander,  333 

Olive,  in  Assyria,  13,  270,  522;  in  Pales¬ 
tine,  198,  308,  524,  630 
Omens,  229,  237,  338,  407,  472,  492;  cf. 

liver  omens 
Onions,  523 

Oracle,  283,  385,  395  f.;  at  Id,  78;  of 
Ishtar,  339  ff.;  of  Marduk,  423;  of 
Nusku  of  Harran,  400;  of  seer,  601; 
Shushinak,  Elamite  god  of,  485;  of 
Sin  of  Harran,  380 
Orange,  270 
Ordeal,  546 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


691 


Orientation,  271,  498 

Orphan,  treatment  of,  624 

Oryx,  142;  Fig.  77 

Ostrich,  79,  213,  257;  Fig.  105 

Oven,  192,  561;  of  potter,  55,  352,  559 

Overseer,  346,  371  f. 

Owl,  640 

Ox,  198;  in  agriculture,  558;  in  Judah 
of  north,  184  f.;  neolithic,  9;  use  for 
watering  machine,  521 
Ox-carts,  179,  285,  287,  308 

Paint,  on  sculptures,  100,  280,  569 
Painting,  280,  569  ff. 

Palace,  restoration  of,  Fig.  116 
Palaeolithic  man,  8 

Palm,  in  Armenia,  112;  in  Assyria,  270, 
502;  Fig.  158;  in  Babylonia,  10,  123, 
156,  179,  200,  286  f.;  Figs.  6,  7; 
bronze,  frontispiece;  fructification, 
102,  105,  107,  271,  276,  323;  Figs.  53, 
55,  109;  gate  of,  441;  in  magic,  407; 
mould  of,  349;  northern  limit  for 
fruit,  79;  in  Palestine,  308;  in  Suhi, 
79,  92,  120;  cf.  dates 
Panther,  95 

Papyrus,  179,  188,  215,  241,  309,  583 
Parapet,  275,  314 

Parasol,  83,  90,  125,  128,  152,  278,  284, 
307;  Figs.  51,  58,  149 
Parchment,  560,  583 
Park,  277,  370  ff.,  497  ff. 

Partridge,  14,  278,  324;  Fig.  115 

Passover,  214 

Pavement,  556 

Peaches,  160 

Peacock,  189 

Pearls,  54,  180,  256 

Pediment,  of  temple,  241 

Peddler,  532 

Pelican,  640 

Penalties,  545 

Pens,  132,  165,  241,  583;  pen-box,  188; 
Fig.  91 

Perspective,  335,  568 
Petroleum,  536 
Phalanx,  21 
Phrase  books,  22,  576 
Physician,  381,  402,  406,  408,  411,  452, 
454,  601;  cf.  disease,  medicine 
Pick,  148,  155,  281,  322,  521 
Pictographs,  Fig.  170 
Big,  242;  cf.  boar,  swine 


Pigtail,  Hittite,  35 
Pine,  222,  289,  319  ff. 

Pineapple,  324 

Pioneers,  112,  229  f.,  241,  368,  604 
Pistachio,  99,  319  ff. 

Plague,  164,  169  ff.,  309,  406,  435,  475 
Plane-trees,  64,  235 
Planets,  277,  591 
Planisphere,  596 

Platform,  overhanging,  on  walls,  129 
Plating,  320,  494  f. 

Platinum,  536 
Pledge,  548 

Plough,  280  f.,  521;  Fig.  120 
Poignard,  103,  239  f. 

Poison,  396 

Poles,  celestial,  593,  595 
Polygamy,  624 

Pomegranate,  149,  160,  324,  570 

Pontoons,  64,  122  f.;  Fig.  8 

Poplar,  160 

Poppy,  151,  523 

Porcelain,  561 

Porcupine,  640 

Postern,  54 

Potter,  274,  352 

Pottery,  235,  281;  from  Carchemish, 
57;  as  fireless  cooker,  275;  from  Cy¬ 
prus,  57,  508;  designs,  561;  early, 
from  Ashur,  Fig.  15;  Greek,  57;  from 
Nasibina,  561;  neolithic  (from  Ash¬ 
ur),  16,  561;  (from  Susa),  9;  oven, 
55,  352,  559;  Phrygian,  222;  pot¬ 
sherd,  216;  from  Tyre,  298;  for  wine, 
275 

Pound,  281,  537 

Prairie,  Mesopotamian,  11,  510 

"P-pipcF  o  1 Q  Qf)7 

Prison,’  186,  271,  357,  398,  456,  458 
Privilege,  349,  526;  cf.  charter 
Property,  laws  of,  554 
Prophecies,  580;  cf.  oracle 
Prophet,  341  f.;  cf.  seer 
Prostitute,  624;  sacred,  549,  632,  653 
Protected  servants,  394 
Provinces,  24,  146,  202,  606  ff. 

Psalms,  622 
Punishment,  550  ff. 

Purification,  22,  490 

Purple,  95,  127  ff.,  280,  417,  560 

Qadu,  official,  355  ff.,  434 
Quartz,  147 


692 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Quatrefoil,  499;  Fig.  151 
Quay,  71,  119,  321,  328,  342 
Quiver,  82, 105, 108,  111,  152, 247;  Figs. 
46,  50,  104,  154 

Rab  mug,  official,  389,  401,  412 
Rab  shaqe,  official,  155,  183,  302,  604  f. 
Racial  elements,  504  ff . 

Rack,  438 
Radish,  523 

Raft,  287,  306,  321,  336,  479 
Rams,  battering,  81,  90,  127,  136,  177, 
179,  219,  232,  308,  359,  604;  Figs.  45, 
104,  127 

Ramp,  in  siege,  177,  289,  306;  at  Ashur, 
148  f.;  at  Dur  Sharrukin,  275,  277; 
Fig.  116 

Raven,  413,  640 
Reclamation,  554 

Recorder,  344,  392,  554;  Hebrew,  302 
Redemption,  547  f. 

Reeds,  boats,  94;  Figs.  29,  135;  for 
building,  26,  54,  147,  263,  319;  mats, 
16,  20;  pen,  132;  plantation,  330; 
stylus,  573 
Register,  268 

Rein  holder,  official,  392,  394,  541 
Religion,  Arab,  5;  neolithic,  9;  Semitic, 
22;  612  ff. 

Reporter,  451 

Reservoir,  52,  221,  316,  332 
Resident,  official,  178,  232,  375,  383, 
487,  606 

Resident  alien,  139,  527  f. 

Revenues,  168;  cf.  taxes 
Rhinoceros,  142;  Fig.  77 
Rhyton,  279,  562;  Fig.  118 
Ring,  93  f.,  240,  572;  as  royal  gifts,  247, 
332,  418;  as  symbol  of  death,  341 
Riparian  rights,  523 
Ritual,  Shumerian,  22 
Ritual  texts,  490 

Roads,  271,  313,  406,  556;  Royal  Road, 
334,  522 
Roasting,  558 
Rollers,  322 

Roof,  18,  106,  320,  371;  gable,  127,  138 
Rooster,  177,  558 

Ropes,  71,  106,  112  f.,  126  f.,  134,  199, 
306  f.,  322,  501 
Rose  granite,  383 

Rosettes,  279,  323;  frontispiece,  Figs. 
92,  93,  109,  151 


Rubbing-stone,  557 
Ruffles,  15 
Rug,  557 

Sabbath,  170,  601  f. 

Sackcloth,  134,  219,  304 
Sacrifice,  620;  foundation,  107 
Safety-pin,  57 
Saffron,  523 

Sales,  544  ff . ;  slave,  540  f . 

Salt,  64,  407,  484 
Salve,  413,  475 

Sandals,  100,  120,  151,  219,  247,  279, 
307,  560 

Sandstone,  at  Ashur,  13,  26;  near  Eri- 
du,  564;  in  Lebanon,  289;  in  Mesopo¬ 
tamia,  11 
Sanitation,  565 
Sapper,  112,  232,  236,  368 
Sar,  589 

Sarcophagus,  625 
Saw,  301,  322 
Scale  armour,  90 

Scales,  151, 170,  213,  241,  292, 456,  537; 

Fig.  102;  constellation,  592,  594 
Scarab,  86 

Sceptre,  239;  Fig.  92 
Science,  584  ff. 

Scimitar,  308 

Scorpion,  378;  scorpion  men,  316;  con¬ 
stellation,  594  f. 

Scribe,  188,  402,  542;  of  city,  583;  He¬ 
brew,  302;  of  palace,  370;  of  Samal, 
Fig.  91;  of  temple,  583;  the  two 
scribes,  230,  583;  Fig.  101 
Scroll,  216 
Scrub-oak,  289 
Sculptor,  position  of,  563 
Sculpture,  cf.  bas-reliefs,  bulls,  lions 
Seal,  for  authentication,  260,  354,  513; 
cylinder,  281,  542;  impressions,  25; 
of  Jeroboam  II,  581 ;  of  Sennacherib, 
309;  of  Shabaka,  309;  stamp  seal, 
281,  309,  542 
Seeing  double,  558 

Seer,  ceremonies  by,  413;  dream  by, 
436  f.;  at  Hadrach,  162;  house  of, 
344;  incantations  by,  388,  452;  in 
liver  omens,  360,  468;  oath  by,  402; 
oracle  of,  601;  science  of,  492;  sons 
of,  348;  in  war,  91 
Seeress,  340 
Self-help,  legal,  551 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


693 


Self-pledge,  549 

Serf,  268,  525,  528,  607;  in  charter,  513; 
duties  of,  518  f.,  expert,  523;  fugitive, 
354;  Hebrew,  209;  in  sales,  543,  547 
Serfdom,  97,  624 

Serpent,  in  Arabia,  378;  brazen,  in  Je¬ 
rusalem,  214;  constellation,  595;  in 
Palestine,  297;  sacred  to  mother  god¬ 
dess,  19;  two-headed,  382 
Serpentine,  13 

Sesame,  brandy,  349;  in  magic,  473; 
oil,  522 ;  price  of,  269,  399 ;  for  sweets, 
558;  wine,  288,  436,  129;  Haldian, 
112,  114  f.;  of  Hattina,  127;  Median, 
244;  Phoenician,  125 
Shovels,  322 
Showbread,  514 
Sickle,  17,  105,  521 
Siege  engines,  300,  359,  383 
Siglos,  coin,  537 

Silver,  from  Adini,  94;  from  Amedi,  91; 
from  Carchemish,  128;  from  Cyprus, 
226;  from  Damascus,  163;  from 
Egypt,  383;  foundation  deposits,  55; 
from  Hattina,  127;  incense-burners, 
239;  ingots,  126,  142;  inlay,  239; 
from  Judah,  306;  from  Israel,  142; 
mines,  144,  534;  Fig.  79;  mountain 
of,  143;  from  Musasir,  239;  Phoeni¬ 
cian,  126;  plating,  320;  in  temple, 
346,  495;  throne,  94 
Sin,  idea  of,  622 

Skin,  clothing,  9;  rafts,  64,  125;  vessels, 
92;  for  water,  332;  for  swimming, 
Figs.  47,  48 

Skirt,  15,  559,  567;  Fig.  16 
Skull  vessel,  390 

Slaves,  bought,  268;  in  census,  517; 
character  of,  622;  dealer,  305,  541; 
duties  to  state,  519;  female,  539; 
Jewish,  305;  manumission,  540; 
names  of,  305,  540;  sales,  305,  479, 
540,  547,  549;  status  of,  528,  538  ff.; 
tribute  of,  516 
Sled,  spiked,  522 
Sledge,  322 

Slingers,  289,  308,  313,  605 

Sluice,  332 

Snail,  147 

Snow,  at  Ashur,  14 

Soil,  of  Assyria,  13;  of  Babylonia,  10 

Songs,  171 

Sorcerer,  492 


Sorcery,  554 

Spears,  Assyrian,  83,  111,  152;  Figs. 
45,  101,  125,  154-156;  Median,  244; 
at  Musasir,  241;  neolithic,  25;  Philis¬ 
tine,  308;  in  ram,  177;  of  Ukkai,  315 
Spearmen,  289,  308 
Spells,  165 
Spelt,  186 

Sphere,  celestial,  593 
Sphinx,  323,  333,  373 
Spices,  Arab,  377 ;  for  foundation  offer¬ 
ing,  349;  from  Iakin,  180;  in  incanta¬ 
tion,  372;  in  procession,  406;  from 
Syria,  183 
Spies,  236,  259 
Spiked  club,  240 
Spindle,  559 

Spirits,  neolithic,  9;  Semitic,  22,  621 
Stable,  247,  251,  275,  329,  371,  559 
Stag,  68,  95,  120,  503;  Fig.  77 
Stairs,  underground,  in  Asia  Minor, 
Fig.  172 
Stake,  501 
Stall,  559 
Stamp,  491 

Standards,  83  f.,  112  f.,  116,  230,  307, 
383,  494  f.,  603,  613  f.,  619;  frontis¬ 
piece,  Figs.  49,  173 

Standing  army,  207,  224,  268,  419,  603 
Star  fish,  298 
Star  map,  594 

Stars,  593  ff.;  as  ornaments,  102  f.,  538 
Stater,  coin,  321,  537 
Statistics,  in  Assyrian  records,  579  f., 
648 

Steer,  83 

Stele,  of  eponyms,  150,  202;  of  king, 
143, 158, 187,  226,  231,  247,  314,  334, 
399;  of  private  person,  168,  200;  of 
queen,  403 
Steward,  394 
Stibium,  306 
Stirrup,  116 
Straw,  88,  253,  521 
Streets,  555 
Stylus,  179,  241,  573 
Succession  House,  337,  386,  390,  403  ff. 
Sumach,  in  tanning,  560 
Sun-dial,  632 

Sun-god,  589,  613  f.;  cf.  Shamash 
Swallow,  340 
Swan,  83 
Swastika,  68 


694 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Sweetmeats,  125,  324 
Swine,  473;  as  food,  558;  wild,  113, 
330  f.  475 

Sword,  89,  108,  111,  219,  605;  Figs.  46, 
91 ;  of  Adad-nirari  1, 48,  562;  of  Adini, 
94;  broadsword,  279;  bronze,  48; 
from  Carchemish,  94;  double-edged, 
151;  gold,  94,  240;  iron,  with  gold 
inlay,  416;  from  Musasir,  240 
Sycamore,  170,  196 
Syllabaries,  576 

Table-cloths,  278 

Tables,  326;  Figs.  117,  158;  animal- 
headed,  311;  from  Asia  Minor,  311; 
of  box,  240;  of  ebony,  94;  lion-footed, 
278,  502;  from  Musasir,  240 
Tablet,  clay,  179,  216,  241,  582  f. 
Tail-board,  of  chariot,  500 
Talio,  law  of,  551 
Tamarisk,  14,  99,  407 
Tambourine,  234 
Tanks,  in  warfare,  605 
Tanning,  560 
Tariff  of  prices,  29,  269 
Taxes,  66  f.,  168, 177,  443,  513,  516,  607 
Temperature,  at  Ashur,  14 
Temple,  “Greek,”  241,  277,  508;  Figs. 
101,  115 

Temple,  position  of,  514 
Temple  tower,  22,  68,  99  f.,  147,  277, 
295,  350,  440,  485,  620;  Figs.  11,  116 
Temples,  22,  619  f.;  Figs.  11,  20;  Phoe¬ 
nician,  Fig.  35 

Tent,  113,  128,  230,  294,  298,  307; 

Arab,  4;  Fig.  1 
Terebinth,  522 

Theft,  punishment  for,  547,  552 
Threshing,  522;  implements,  143 
Thresholds,  274,  395 
Throne,  Babylonian,  285;  boxwood,  73; 
as  chariot,  313,  315;  for  goddess,  73; 
of  ivory,  gold,  and  silver,  94;  royal, 
107,  298,  307,  403,  571 
Thumb  mark,  542 

Thunderbolt,  of  Adad,  68,  79,  350,  572, 
618;  bronze,  64;  gold,  68,  572;  of 
Marduk,  102;  of  Teshub,  Figs.  84,  97 
Thyme,  473,  523 

Tiara,  94,  113,  151,  279,  399,  502 
Tides,  290 

Tiling,  151,  275,  277,  280,  570 
Timbering,  259  f.,  272  ff. 


Tin,  535 

Tomb,  217,  522;  at  Amurru,  Fig.  51;  of 
Ashur-bel-kala,  70  f.;  of  Ashur-nasir- 
apal  II,  108;  of  Lydian  kings,  Fig. 
148;  of  Nahum,  Fig.  175;  objects 
from  early,  Ashur,  Fig.  15;  Shamshi 
Adad  V,  157;  Phrygian,  222;  Fig.  95 
Tooth,  care  of,  406 

Torch,  326,  425;  in  ceremony,  372;  in 
magic,  414;  Philistine,  306,  308; 
Figs.  123,  127 

Towers,  movable,  in  war,  90,  93 
Trade,  506,  527;  guild,  255,  538,  559; 
neolithic,  12  f.;  route,  the  great,  12, 
532 

Translations,  576 

Treaty,  425;  with  Baal  of  Tyre,  375, 
533;  with  Babylonia,  38,  45,  70,  76, 
121;  with  Egypt,  38,  48,  309,  416; 
Hittite  treaties,  40,  45;  with  Egypt, 
49,  51 

Tree,  sacred,  107,  571;  Figs.  53,  54;  cf. 
palm 

Tribal  organisation,  21 

Tribute,  50,  66,  127,  129  f.,  3S3,  607 

Trident,  102;  cf.  thunderbolt 

Trinity,  Haldian,  315 

Trumpet,  322 

Tulip,  11,  561 

Tunic,  106,  152,  199,  319,  322,  559; 
Babylonian,  285;  of  Hattina,  126; 
Hebrew,  632;  of  king,  102;  Median, 
244;  of  Tumurri,  314;  of  winged  ge¬ 
nius,  100 

Turban,  105,  322;  at  Ashur,  15;  of  god 
Ashur,  25;  at  Carchemish,  129;  of 
lady,  Fig.  18;  of  lion,  100;  of  mushar- 
kis  official,  462;  of  Phoenicians,  125; 
of  Philistines,  308;  of  Tumurri,  314; 
receiving  turban,  344 
Turnips,  523 
Turquoise,  33 

Turtanu,  official,  44,  76,  105,  108,  110, 
118, 125, 146, 152, 166,  177,  189,  219, 
259,  279,  457,  549,  605  f.;  Fig.  93; 
Haldian,  263 
Turtle,  113,  289,  298 
Twins,  constellation,  595  f. 

Underworld,  351,  413,  596,  613,  625 
Unguent  vessels,  63 
Urigallu  priest,  407,  496 
Urns,  burial,  57 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


695 


Valves,  bronze,  of  gate,  71,  149;  of 
canal,  332 

Vases,  stone,  35;  Fig.  159 
Vault,  271,  565;  barrel,  106;  burial,  565, 
625 

Vegetables,  514,  522 
Veil,  299,  314 
Veiling,  553 

Vice,  unnatural,  punishment  for,  551 
Villages,  neolithic,  8 
Vine,  arbor,  502;  Fig.  158 
Vineyard,  in  Armenia,  160,  236,  238; 
in  Asia  Minor,  31 1 ;  in  Harran  region, 
522;  in  Judah,  213,  303,  630;  in  Ju¬ 
dah  of  north,  185;  at  Lachish,  308;  in 
Lebanons,  297;  in  mountains,  524;  in 
Persia,  289;  cf.  grapes,  wine 
Viper,  216 

Virgin,  constellation.  425,  594 
Vision,  351,  387 

Volutes,  Ionic,  107,  187,  277,  287  502 
Vulture,  84,  475 

Wagon,  Elamite,  497 
Wain,  constellation,  595 
Wand,  240 

Waste  land,  utilisation,  521 
Water-clock,  594 
Watering  machine,  523,  548 
Water-wheel,  68;  Figs.  66,  71,  76 
Wax,  79 

Weather  god,  of  Arabs,  5;  cf.  Adad, 
Teshub 
Weaver,  545 

Weaving,  226,  519,  539,  560 
Weights,  281,  506,  571 
Well,  12,  98,  148,  429,  521,  558;  in  des¬ 
ert,  Fig.  143 

Well-sweep,  331,  335  f.,  507,  521 
West  Semites,  26,  31  f. 

Whale,  65 

Wharf,  418;  dues,  513,  526;  cf.  quay 
Wheat,  in  Babylonia,  10;  in  Judah,  170; 
in  Judah  of  north,  185;  neolithic,  9, 
522;  price  of,  29;  rare  use  of,  557 
Wheel,  potter’s,  37,  559,  561 


Whip,  436 
Whorl,  spindle,  560 
Widows,  treatment  of,  552,  624 
Windows,  in  frame  house,  19 
Wine,  advance  of,  520;  none  in  Assyria, 
558;  bowl  of,  107,  502;  caldrons  of, 
171;  card,  524;  first-fruits,  515;  foun¬ 
dation  offering,  349,  497;  from  Gil- 
zan,  115;  for  gods,  72,  240,  344,  488, 
515;  Haldian,  235,  240;  from  Hat- 
tina,  128;  from  Israel,  132,  141,  171, 
192;  from  Izalla,  88;  jars,  83,  128, 
132,  235,  275,  324,  561;  from  Judah, 
213, 303;  from  Kirruri,  85;  laver,  240; 
in  magic,  351,  407;  from  Mannai, 
231  f.;  offerings,  477;  price,  399;  re¬ 
fusal  to  drink,  141;  skins,  115,  235; 
for  sick,  269,  407;  sesame,  288,  436; 
from  snow  mountains,  349 
Winnowing,  455,  522 
Wisdom,  584  ff. 

Witnesses,  542 
Witchcraft,  407 
Wives,  abandonment  of,  553 
Wolf,  475;  constellation,  595 
Women,  neolithic,  9;  position  of,  550  ff., 
624,  647 

Wool,  assignments,  519;  from  Carche- 
mish,  94;  clothes,  511,  559;  crimson, 
84;  dark  blue,  126;  mantles,  94;  neo¬ 
lithic  use  of,  9;  Phoenician,  126;  price 
of,  29,  399 
Word,  Divine,  575 
Worms,  587 

Writing,  early,  16,  573;  Hebrew,  132 
Written  Bowl,  546 

Year,  Solar,  589 

Yoke,  112,  116,  138,  227,  329,  497 

Zebu,  521 
Zinc,  536 

Ziqpu  instrument,  594 
Zodiac,  379,  589,  593  f.,  632 
Zoological  Gardens,  95 
Zoology,  587 


.—■re-Mu-  - _  _  . _ - 


Date  Due 


FACULTY 


